


Intangibles

by toejamfootball



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Okay bear with me this is a chaptered fic, There's going to be a lot of guerrilla warfare and abuse to children, also the sheriff informs Derek that he has a gun, and I don't really do chaptered fics so lets see how this turns out, and be epic about it, and get their asses kicked by alphas, and it's all very epic so pay attention, and then they kick alpha ass, and worm themselves into eachother's lives unconsciously, probably a lot of gore too, so read at your own risk, this would be the one where we get to see Derek and Stiles discuss their knowledge with eachother
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-24
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 19:37:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toejamfootball/pseuds/toejamfootball
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't Derek who starts the war. It's the human. The liability. The clever one. He's the one who unwittingly starts a war that could consume Beacon Hills. And he's the one who draws up the battle lines, and the strategy for an inconceivable way to win the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bad Omens

**Author's Note:**

> It needs to be noted that I got the entire idea for the Sicilian Triskele from this [post](http://fannishthings.tumblr.com/post/29904751613/sometimenever-so-lets-talk-about-this-its) on tumblr. So I have to give credit to knowing where to begin in my research. Because this was an awesome post.

Stiles was the first one to notice the massive disconnect within Derek’s pack. It started when every time he went over to Scott’s, Isaac was there. It started when Isaac started attending dinner with Scott. Stiles used to hang around Scott a lot around dinner time because his dad was never home and he didn’t like eating alone. 

It started when Isaac started sleeping on the couch. And then when Melissa dragged him off of the couch and ushered Isaac back toward a spare room that used to belong to Scott’s father before she kicked him out. Stiles knew Scott back then - he knew all the arguments. He knew Scott’s parents stopped sharing a bed sometime during junior high because Scott had asked him if that was normal behavior. They could hardly be in a room together without arguing, in low controlled voices. It was uncomfortable for Stiles to even witness, but Isaac wasn’t there for any of that.

It started when Melissa noticed that Isaac owned about three whole outfits, and then guilt-tripped Scott into taking Isaac out for more - even though they really didn’t have the money. But Isaac’s parents were dead, and the poor kid wore the same pair of jeans four days a week and he never asked them for anything. It started when Isaac began splitting his time - unequally - between Derek and Scott, because Derek wasn’t Scott’s alpha and Derek wasn’t talking to Scott anymore.

Derek wasn’t talking to any of them. And it annoyed Stiles, and his annoyance annoyed him too. Because this was a guy he tried avoiding for the last seven months. This was the guy he didn’t trust, this was the guy he tried to talk Scott out of listening to. And Derek’s silence could be taken as a blessing - his silence meant nothing bad was happening. What did that say about Stiles that he likened Derek to a bad omen? And still expected to see him. But Stiles caught Isaac on the phone with Derek once when Stiles showed up at Scott’s house unannounced, and the hushed, hurried whispers - well, they begged to differ.

And that symbol painted on Derek’s door? Stiles had glanced a glimpse of it when he’d gone looking for Derek - right before Derek told him to get lost, that he didn’t have a reason to be there. That he was with Scott, in Scott’s pack - that he’d chosen his side, even though nobody had really asked Stiles. Nobody had to, really, because Scott was his best friend, and it went without say. Wherever Scott went, Stiles would follow. He would follow him into hell if he had to. With his luck, Scott wouldn’t know about not eating the food in hell. He would get trapped there forever; but Stiles would be with him. He would lead him out of hell, out of the dark. Would Isaac?

He read up on that symbol. He knew it was like the symbol on Derek’s back - a triskele, but different. It was sharp lines, jagged edges and there had to be a reason for that; it had to mean something. He knew from before what spirals meant, especially in repetitions of three. Three was a very important number in symbolism, it turned out. 

Birth, life and death. Past, present and future. Mind, body and soul. Man, woman and child. It meant unity. Completion. It was also present in folklore - three wishes, three guesses, three little pigs, three bears. But it got better than that. First, three was used five hundred and twenty three times in the bible. Which - that seemed a bit excessive, but whatever. There was a line that John the Baptist said in regard to Christ. “I am the alpha and the omega.” He wasn’t quite sure why the website mentioned that - since that was just two, and two symbolically meant duality and complete opposites, mirror images, at times. That was when Stiles figured three probably meant Alpha, Beta and Omega too. That was probably why Derek got it engraved on his skin. Sure. That wasn’t creepy.

A spiral form of the triskele was a solar symbol and Stiles accidentally learned why exactly there were 365 days a year and why the calendar was based off of the solar year and not the lunar year. More specifically, a triskele was an ancient Celtic symbol that has come to refer to the cycle of life. Since it was usually drawn with one continuous line, it could mean the never ending and continuous movement of life. It also represented the number three.

However, since this symbol wasn’t a spiral - he broadened his search. He found out it was a Sicilian triskele. A triskele with chthonic importance. Chthonic merely meant Earth.

“One that designates, or pertains to deities or spirits of the underworld,” he read out loud. The greek ‘khthon’ was another word for earth - and the island that used this symbol as a flag had been colonized by Greece at the time. But it wasn’t really Earth; it was the interior of the soil, not the living surface of the earth. He added the symbolic meaning of Earth to his list of things to further research. He knew it might be a strenuous process. He’d stumbled into Celtic and Greek lore and there were a lot of conflicting stories when it came to lore.

There was a triangle in the center of the Sicilian triskele because it was a flag and the island it belonged to was in the shape of a triangle. A triangle that had three capes that were equidistant from each other, jutting out from the triangle.

 _‘The Sicilian Triskele was usually drawn with a Medusa head in the center, instead of a triangle,_ ’ google informed him. Ironically, Athena was the patron goddess for this island. And there were two stories about Medusa and Athena in mythology. One depicted Medusa as a destructive aspect of Athena. But a different one depicted Medusa as a monster that was killed by Perseus - and her head adorned Athena’s shield. Athena symbolized civilization, law and justice, just warfare. Strength. Strategy. Skill. And this bitch was harsh. One of the tales of her and Medusa depicted Medusa as a human who was raped by Poseidon in her temple. And upon seeing the destruction of her temple, Athena turned Medusa into this monster - this woman with snakes for hair, who turned men to stone should they look her in the eye. She was petty and fierce.

He looked up Earth - and Earth pretty much correlated with Athena. Cold, steady, unmoving, full of hollows and caves and valleys.

He wasn’t sure why, but he was suddenly on edge, because somebody had drawn this symbol on Derek’s door. And it wasn’t a welcoming to the neighborhood, let’s bake casseroles later kind of move. It was a challenge. And the people who drew this symbol were strong and steady and skilled and they were coming for Derek. For them all. This cold, steady, unmoving force.

“Hey.”

Stiles jumped, but immediately relaxed when he saw Scott in his doorway. “Hey - god,” he said, pressing a hand to his chest. “What?” And it wasn’t the question he’d meant to ask, but there it was. What was Scott doing here? Things had been tense between them. They hadn’t really been making many house calls.

Scott smiled and didn’t read too much into Stiles’s question as much as Stiles did. Stiles closed his computer and spun in his chair to face Scott. “I’m not God, Stiles - I don’t why you call me God everytime I come over. Flattering, yes, but inaccurate.”

Scott received a cold gaze in response for the joke. It was their natural response to each other’s jokes. Now jokes on other people’s behalfs? Yeah. They laughed at those. Loudly. Obnoxiously.

“Where’s Isaac?” Scott said, with a smile, the only hint that he heard that question from Stiles way too often - a question Stiles didn’t even remember voicing half the time. Scott and Isaac had become nearly inseparable. The question was the only hint at Stiles’s inner lying annoyance and jealousy, but Scott didn’t read too much into that either. He thought it was amusing. As amusing as using his werewolf powers with Stiles when they practiced lacrosse, evidently. “We’re about to head to the field to practice. You wanna come?”

“Practice lacrosse with two werewolfs?” Stiles reiterated, canting his head to the side. “Uh, no, bud, I think I’ll pass on that one.”

“You don’t like him,” Scott broached.

“I like him just fine,” Stiles said automatically. It was a memorized line because he did read too much into his own behavior. He didn’t have a problem with Isaac. Isaac was pack, sorta. He got the raw end of the stick. He had no one. It was good that he had a friend like Scott. But the more time Isaac spent with Scott, it felt, the less Stiles saw him. He realized abruptly that he wasn’t going to tell Scott about the stupid Triskele on Derek’s door - and it saddened him. Because he told Scott everything, but they hadn’t really been talking a lot lately. 

“You’re cold with him, man,” Scott said, and maybe Scott read too much into his behavior after all.

“What? No, I’m not,” Stiles said - another automatic response, but this one was a little more genuine. He was honestly baffled because he wasn’t cold to Isaac. He wasn’t cold to anyone.

“Dude, every time you come over you have this look on your face. You remember how you used to look at Matt?” Scott continued.

“Uh, no, I never actually got a look at my own face, Scott,” Stiles said wryly. Joked. But what if he did look at Isaac like Matt? Because he really hated Matt, and he couldn’t imagine looking at anybody but Jackson like he looked at Matt. Just… his stupid face. And the look on that stupid face. He just didn’t like it.

Scott smiled faintly. “He’s cool,” he said. “Quiet and subtle which is weird, because you’re the only person I ever hang out with and you’re definitely not very quiet or subtle but he’s cool. You should hang out with us. It’ll be fun.

There was that word that Scott had started using lately ever since he and Allison ended things. _Fun_. He was pretty sure it didn’t mean what Scott thought it meant. Because playing lacrosse with two werewolves who thought using their powers against the puny mortal was anything but annoying and awkward as hell was definitely not fun. “Next time,” Stiles said, glancing over his shoulder at his closed computer. “I got some homework to catch up on. And uh - my dad has a new case that I thought I’d… uh, dig into, y’know?”

“Your dad hates you messing with his cases,” Scott pointed out, ignoring the comment about his homework because Stiles just… never seemed to have any. Stiles wondered if he’d gotten better at lying, because Derek always called him out on it, but Scott never seemed to notice. Allison’s heartbeat was probably the only one Scott paid attention to anyway. Not everybody wanted to be a walking lie-detector.

Stiles cracked a smile this time. “Yeah, I know,” he admitted. “But he loves it - secretly - I am positive.” Lie. “It’s probably nothing.” Lie. “But it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. With all the werewolf bullshit and everything.” Truth. “I mean, imagine if I never snooped in my dad’s files? You wouldn’t have your BFF Isaac right now.” Truth so true it hurt to swallow.

Scott wasn’t smiling anymore. There was a tension here that had never really left, not since that night in the Sheriff’s department. It was a tension so thick and so full, it was hard to breathe. For a second, it looked like Scott might say something about that - reaffirm Stiles’s status as his best friend. But then that second passed and both of their expressions sort of just closed down after that. “Okay, well, dude, if you change your mind, we’ll probably be at the field all night. You know you can’t make captain next year if you don’t practice.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed. “And I totally intend to practice. Eventually.”

There wasn’t much to say after that, so Scott left and Stiles released a trapped breath and turned back to his computer. And nearly jumped out of his chair. Because standing right in front of his window was Derek Hale. “Jesus Christ,” he shouted, pressing a hand to his chest. “Could you not do that, seriously, man?” The frustration in his voice was very real. Fucking werewolves. Materializing out of thin air. Like fucking werewolves.

Derek didn’t smile. He never smiled. Stiles read somewhere that it took more muscles to frown than smiles - no wonder Derek’s face looked so lean and chiseled. Dude never took a break. “What?” Stiles asked. “What is it, Lassy? Timmy’s stuck in a well?” He rapped his fingers on the closed lid of his computer.

Nothing. No reaction, no smile, no eye roll, nothing. “Dog jokes? Clever. You’re lying to Scott now?” He asked. Stiles knew he looked pissed just because that was just his face, and not because he actually cared who Stiles lied to.

“Are we having a talk here? Is this our first heart to heart? Should I lie down and tell you all of my problems? Is that the stage we’ve reached in our friendship?” Joking was his default, and he wasn’t sure if it got funnier, or worse when Derek never smiled. “Contrary to what it looks like - the lassie joke was not because you’re a werewolf. Because I am clever.”

Derek looked unimpressed, but he didn’t argue the point. Stiles was clever. Probably more than all of them. Cutting the boy down wouldn’t do Derek any favors. “Why?” Derek asked, pressing, like the answer was important.

“Scott’s busy, and it’s nothing. I don’t wanna play lacrosse with him and his new fucking live in roommate.” The agitation was real too. He shrugged and scoffed. “So what? I’m allowed to blow off my friends, dude, what are you even doing here? Did you hear my heartbeat speed up from all the way across town? Or do you just eavesdrop outside of my house on a regular basis now? Is this a hobby for you? Are you really that uncreative and creepy?”

Still, nothing. “You’re getting better at lying. You’re starting to talk over your disloyal heartbeat. Distraction is the laziest tactic in the books, though, you do realize that, right?”

Was Derek joking, or was he really insulting him? Stiles honestly didn’t know whether he should be offended or not. “What books? Good peptalk, though. Never get a job at a suicide prevention hotline.”

Derek moved deeper into Stiles’s room. “What’d you find out?”

“Huh?” Stiles asked, his head whipping to the side to stare at Derek, hoping maybe he’d just misheard Derek.

“I heard you talking. About the deities of the underworld. What’d your halfass google search lead you to, Stiles?”

“First off,” Stiles began. “Searching google is an art form and I have mastered it. Nothing I do on google is half-assed, okay? And second off - rude. I didn’t find out anything. I found out why we follow the solar calendar and not the lunar one - it’s actually a funny story. So there was this dude, right -”

“Stiles.” Derek looked impatient, not amused. Or hell - maybe it was amusement. Did Stiles even know what Derek’s amused face looked like? Maybe he was so uncreative that his amused and impatient faces looked the exact same. It seemed plausible. “What did you find?”

“Nothing. Just that a strong, steady, skilled, unmoving force has challenged you. Waged war on you. And probably all of Beacon Hills because hey - why the hell not? Why haven’t you told Scott yet?”

Derek shrugged, leaning back against Stiles’s wall. “I thought Isaac might.”

Stiles stopped, narrowing his eyes at Derek. Wait. What was that look for? Was that emotion? “Wait,” he said. “Are you - are you jealous right now? Really?”

Derek shrugged again. “No.”

Stiles rose to his feet and moved closer. “No. No that is it - that is jealousy on your face, right now. No wait - I got this, I’ve been practicing.” He cleared his throat and pitched his voice slightly deeper. “Do you know what I just heard right there? Your heart skip a beat over the word - no.” He grinned and poked Derek in the chest. “Jealous.”

Derek’s face loosened slightly, and there was a faint smile that ghosted over his lips before disappearing entirely. “Shut up. What else do you know?”

“What else do you know?” Stiles countered, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Nothing,” Derek said. 

Stiles made a loud noise - “BZZT! Wrong answer. Please try again.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “It’s a pack of Alphas.”

Stiles sobered up quickly. “I think that’s theoretically impossible. There’s a pecking order to wolves, and I’m fairly positive that an entire pack of alphas would have imploded about the same time they all got together.”

“Yeah, in theory,” Derek agreed. “But somehow they make it work. They probably have an Alpha alpha. Werewolves feed off of each other’s power. The more members you have in the pack, the more powerful each member is - but also the more powerful the alpha is. But if all the members in the pack are alphas…”

“They all get that extra power boost,” Stiles finished for him, like he’d just unearthed something new. “But that creates a kind of paradox, doesn’t it? Each individual members comes with power that is amplified by the alpha, but the alpha is amplified by the individual member - that is amplified because they’re an alpha too. And it’s all amplified over and over again - how is that even possible?”

Derek shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

“That is freaking genius.” Stiles appeared to have temporarily forgotten the pressing danger. “Why are they here?”

“They are drawn…” He paused, and Stiles watched as he tried to work out his train of thought. As if he were actually trying here. “When an alpha comes to power, a werewolf can feel it. Usually that alpha draws omegas to him - omegas who have been disowned by their own pack, or whose pack has died - they are drawn to new alphas, because it represents a new start - and usually because new alphas are so desperate to build a pack, they can’t really be picky about who they let in. But all werewolves can feel it. These alphas, they can feel it. And they intend to rob those new alphas of their power when they’re still young and inexperienced.”

“Like you,” Stiles said helpfully.

“Like me,” Derek agreed, in a surprisingly humble moment. “That’s why they’re here. For power.”

“So that’s potentially mind-boggling terrifying,” Stiles said. “What are you going to do about it.” There was a certain glint in his eyes, already going over the possible solutions in his head.

“I don’t know,” Derek said again.

“Well, you’re not strong enough, right? I mean Erica and Boyd are AWOL. And Scott isn’t with you. And Isaac is -” What even was Isaac?

“Isaac is pack,” Derek said firmly, almost defensively.

“Yeah, okay.” Stiles held up his hands defensively. “And Peter -” He made a face. He hadn’t really dwelled much on Peter Hale. At the time of his sudden revelation that Peter wasn’t as dead as they had all thought - he was a little caught up on the whole getting his ass kicked by an old man, Lydia reviving Jackson with power of love and Scott taking care of Gerard on his own. There was this aching feeling at the back of his brain when he thought about Scott’s face. Scott hadn’t looked surprised at all. “You know he’s working an angle, right?”

“I know,” Derek confirmed, sounding tired - like he’d already gone over it too many times in his own head too.

“If he were to kill you to become Alpha again, this new pack would probably recruit him, right? Instead of killing him? He’s not really a new alpha - he was more powerful than you are now. He had this whole wolf shape thing and creepy eyes and everything going for him - I mean what’s up with the turning into a wolf anyway? How come you don’t do that?”

Derek was frowning at Stiles, because that was the conclusion he’d come to too. But he didn’t know what to do about it. Peter was helping - for the moment - but Deaton’s words hadn’t strayed too far from his mind. The man had told him not to trust Peter. He had said that Peter would try to get into his head, make him feel like he needed his uncle; make him trust him.

“Derek.” Stiles snapped his fingers in front of Derek’s face.

“What?” Derek snapped, coming back to himself and scowling at the boy.

“Zone out, huh?” Stiles evidently wasn’t the least bit surprised at being annoyed. He didn’t even look offended. “Yeah, I do that all the time. Doctors like to pretend it’s a symptom of exhaustion but I think it’s just because you’ve got too much thought in your head and your brain doesn’t really know what to do with it. Mine usually creates terrifyingly graphic simulations to go along with the thoughts.” Stiles cleared his throat and rocked back on his heels. Derek couldn’t really imagine Stiles ever being truly exhausted. The kid had too much energy. “How did Peter resurrect himself?”

Derek frowned at him and Stiles sighed. Derek’s face had completely shut down. “We’re totally done with the info sharing, aren’t we?”

“It’s not something you need to know,” Derek said, stiffly. “It pertains to werewolf rituals and -”

“Like the wolf moon?” Stiles asked. He had learned it through a doctor he and Scott had looked for, for the werewolf cure.

Derek moved abruptly, suddenly reversing their positions and Stiles found himself slammed back hard against the wall. “How do you know about that?” Derek asked quietly, controlled violence in his voice.

“Google,” Stiles said automatically. It was a lie, and his heartbeat picked up - but he wanted to pretend like maybe that had more to do with the being slammed into walls part instead of the lying part.

Derek’s face darkened. “Wrong answer. Try again.”

If Stiles wasn’t having trouble breathing, choking on his own fear, he might have laughed. “Look, could you just trust me for like one second? I know it has to do with Lydia, okay? I don’t know the specifics, but I know he did text her before all that Jackson bullshit. Which makes me think you didn’t just kill Jackson - that that was part of the cure, you big ol’ marshmellow, you. And c’mon - we’re totally on the same side. Well, except for that one time you wanted to kill Lydia and we actively opposed you - or that one time we got you arrested - or - or that one time we told everybody in town you were a crazed killer and accidentally turned you into a fugitive… sorta on purpose…” Stiles chuckled breathlessly, realizing he was definitely not helping his case. “Crazy times,” he said weakly.

Okay, maybe they weren’t on the same side all the time - but it’d been a while and it seemed like they ended up against the same threat… all the freaking time. “Don’t you think it’s about time we cut the bullshit and just admit maybe we’re all fighting the same monster and instead of fighting each other we should maybe like pool our resources and work together - like civilized adults?”

Something in Derek’s face shifted it into an unreadable expression, and he opened his mouth like he might say something - something Stiles wanted to hear - but then the door opened, and they both froze. 

“Stiles, have you seen my -” His father stopped there, in the doorway, and stared at them. Stiles glanced back at Derek and realized what this might look like. Derek had him pressed against the wall, fingers digging into his sternum, and this could go one of two ways. His father could immediately think Derek was threatening Stiles - which wouldn’t be too far off the mark. Or he could think they’d just gotten caught making out red-handed. “Hale,” his father said stiffly, and that told him absolutely nothing about his father’s inevitable reaction. 

“Sheriff Stilinski,” Derek said back. Stiles nudged Derek in the ribs and Derek immediately backed off - gave him room - and in hindsight, that probably didn’t help the situation any. It just made it look like they could communicate silently, with touches - which was so totally not true.

“Dad,” Stiles said automatically. “This is totally not what it looks like.”

“Why don’t you tell me what it looks like,” His father said, carefully. It was a good tactic, Derek realized. It forced Stiles to either admit what he did - admit what it looked like - or it forced him to come up with a lie on the spot. A lie that they’d both have to be a part of in the end.

“It looks like… Me and Derek here -”

“Derek and I,” Derek said - helpfully. Stiles shot him an unimpressed look.

“Derek and I were wrapped up in a very intense argument about Skyrim,” he said, shooting another glare at Derek. “This peasant actually played the Blades’ lap dog and killed Paarthurnax - can you believe that?” And to Stiles’s credit, he actually sounded alarmed and angry about it. Personally offended. 

Stiles’s father’s gaze shifted over to Derek. “Who’s Paarthurnax?” He asked, but he didn’t sound like he cared. It was a test. This was the problem with embellished, unrehearsed lies.

“He’s the dra-” Stiles began.

“Derek,” his father interrupted, silencing Stiles with a stern, unamused look. “Who is Paarthurnax.” It had stopped being a question.

Derek felt trapped in that gaze, rooted to the spot, the familiar dread at being chastised by an adult heavy in his gut - like he had anything to fear from this man. Like he cared. It brutally reminded him that he was still a child. “He’s a character that…. Clearly deserved to die. I play no one’s lap dog,” Derek said slowly. He just barely caught Stiles’s grin from behind the sheriff. “I do what I want.” And if Derek hadn’t sounded so robotic about it - it might actually have been funny.

The sheriff didn’t look impressed. “Dinner is in five.” Only once he was halfway down the hall did he throw over his shoulder, “I’ll set you a place, Hale.”

Once the sheriff was out of earshot, Stiles actually started laughing. He covered his face with a hand and laughed loudly into the silent room. Derek shoved Stiles back into the wall hard, before passing him and following in the sheriff’s footsteps.


	2. Learning curve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing — these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.
> 
> \- Tim O'brien; The things they carried (and the source of the Title for this fic)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you see a Louis C.K. joke in here and recognize it - it's because it's a Louis C.K. joke.

Dinner, as it turned out, had actually been prepared by Stiles, and his father had pulled it from the oven and set the table. He had to actually search for a third chair, because it had just been the two of them for so long, it hadn’t seemed necessary. It was lasagna, with breadsticks instead of garlic toast. Derek stood awkwardly at the edge of the kitchen, right in the doorway as Stiles tossed a salad that nobody really intended to eat.

“Don’t stand there like a freaking voyeur, okay?” Stiles muttered once his father had disappeared from the room to grab the milk and a few glasses. “Take a seat, freak.” He set the salad in the middle of the table beside the lasagna. Three of them at the table was going to be a fit. They barely had room for all the food. So Derek took a seat, but he didn’t look any less awkward about it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat down to a dinner.

Stiles took the beer from his dad’s hand as the man returned and put it back in the fridge. “You know how many calories are in beer?” He sighed as he grabbed his father a glass for the milk. “Alcohol isn’t just bad for the liver, it’s bad for pretty much everything else too, dad,” he added, but it was a worn out lecture that his father didn’t bother to refute anymore.

Derek didn’t like it here. Even sitting at their table felt like he was on the other side of the window, looking in. The Sheriff reached slightly to clasp Stiles’s shoulder so briefly, Derek almost missed it and then they cut into the lasagna. There was melancholy hanging around them. A sadness reflected in both of them, so loud and so violent, Dere couldn’t understand how he’d never noticed it before. An open wound behind the sheriff’s eyes when he looked at Stiles. It made the man’s next words easier to swallow.

“I have a gun.”

Stiles choked on his mouthful of lasagna and coughed, shattering what silence had briefly fallen. He swallowed hard and Derek set down his fork. “I don’t,” he said.

“That’s comforting,” Stiles said. “Right?” He elbowed his father. “No firearm accidents with this man, nu huh.”

His father didn’t look comforted. He set his fork down too, and leveled Derek with a weighted gaze. “And if you injure Stiles in anyway - physically, psychologically or emotionally - I am going to take that gun, and shoot you with it.”

The dinner ground to a surprisingly abrupt halt. Stiles gawked at his father - were they really having this talk? Now? The threatening his… jesus christ. His father hadn’t even given him the sex talk yet. There hadn’t even been any talk about Stiles perhaps being gay - which he wasn’t, he was fairly positive, but sexuality was fluid. He was just positive he’d never seen a dick he wanted to suck. It didn’t mean there wasn’t a dick out there he wanted to suck - it just meant he’d never found one yet. And his father was taking this amazingly well. Stiles glanced at Derek, and Derek was looking at his father in a way he’d never looked at Stiles. There wasn’t a frown, or that hateful glint in his eyes. Derek didn’t even look amused - playful, almost - like he did sometimes. It was entirely unreadable.

“I understand,” Derek said. He didn’t try to set the man straight, he just answered him a firm, but almost…jesus - almost respectable tone.

His father nodded his head with finality and picked up his fork again and proceeded to eat. The discuss was evidently closed. They dissolved into other topics. The sheriff prodded Stiles about lacrosse practice - the practices he’d been having every other day with Scott since the championship game. More or less. He’d been blowing Scott off a lot lately, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been improving. A lot of it was just confidence anyway. 

He’d spent the first two years of high school with the constant reminder that he sucked. But last year? During that championship game? He definitely hadn’t sucked. And it helped. It gave him confidence, something to focus on.

They shifted toward Stiles’s grades - Straight As - and his upcoming finals, and how Stiles needed to buckle down because he didn’t do too well with test taking and these finals were important. It wasn’t a bad concern actually - Stiles’s ADHD made it difficult to sit still and focus that long in such a still and silent environment. Stiles glanced toward Derek at this new topic. It wasn’t really his father’s fault. He didn’t know that Stiles and Derek weren’t exactly on talking terms. That Derek didn’t know anything about him. That his father was revealing all this new information to him.

But this might be the only dinner they share this week, and it was already the beginning of May. Finals were fast approaching. “Stiles.” Stiles jerked his gaze back to his father, and abruptly realized that his thoughts had wandered. And he hadn’t even realized it. “You forget your meds this morning? You seem distracted.”

Stiles could feel Derek’s gaze boring into him. He didn’t like it. This feeling. Almost helpless, even. “Yeah,” he said, but it was a struggle forcing that word out. And his father must have read it in his face because he immediately backed off.

They strayed from the topic of his meds and grades and everything else after that. Stiles tried to broach the subject of his father’s new case, but the man quickly shut him down. Stiles expected it, at least. He’d have to wait until Derek left and try again. His father turned his gaze on Derek and started asking Derek questions. About his life, his job (what job?), how things had been lately. But there was a certain kind of quiet respect. He didn’t tread too closely to the topic of family. He didn’t bring up the arrest or the accused murder. There was a lightness to it, not a prying one. And evidently - Derek knew how to talk too. He also didn’t bring up the fact that Stiles and Derek might be dating. And Stiles knew why. In his father’s mind - that issue was settled. Until he walked in on Stiles and Derek fucking - which would definitely never happen, on account of them not going out and all.

After dinner, Stiles cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. He wrapped up the leftover lasagna and stuck it in the fridge. “You’ve got forty-five minutes,” the sheriff said, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. “Then your friend has to leave.” Derek hadn’t left his seat at the table. “And if I walk in on you in a compromising position again, Stiles…” Stiles stilled, his back still turned toward his father, hands curled on the edge of the sink. His back was tight with tension.

“Well, I don’t know what I’d do,” he admitted, slightly sheepish, because parents were supposed to be better at this. They were supposed to know what to do in this kind of situation. “But you got a vivid imagination. I’ll let you come up with something and pretend I did later.” Then the sheriff retreated from the room, and Derek listened to his footsteps slowly fade, surprised the man was actually giving them privacy.

“So that was unbelievably awkward,” Stiles said, drawing Derek’s attention back to him. The boy still hadn’t turned around yet. “You can just forget everything he just said about - everything. None of it’s relevant anyway so -”

“What do you take medication for?” Derek inquired, almost innocently.

Stiles turned around now, leveling Derek with a calculative gaze. “Why?” He asked, deflecting.

“You always smell like medicine,” Derek admitted. “Why?”

Stiles scoffed, leaning back against the sink and folding his own arms across his chest. In that moment - oddly - he resembled his father. Even when the difference in fashion were taken into account. The sheriff was in uniform. Stiles wore a thick unzipped hoody, and worn jeans. The sheriff looked professional and Stiles looked the complete opposite of that. “What makes you think I have to tell you anything?”

Derek managed to sigh and roll his eyes at the same time. “After your whole rant about trust - really?” Stiles was unmoved. “Alright. You answer my questions, and I’ll answer yours. What I know, at least. Deal?”

That seemed to dislodge something in Stiles, and the boy loosened up a bit. “ADHD. My question is -”

“ADHD?” Derek pressed, clearly wanting Stiles to elaborate. Oh, and wasn’t Derek just the epitome of patience and curiosity? 

Stiles scowled at him. “It’s my turn,” he said stubbornly.

Derek cocked an eyebrow at him. “Is that really the game you want to play? Is that really how you want me to answer your questions?”

Stiles sighed. “I have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder,” he said. “More on the inattentive and hyperactive side, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed. I take Adderall for it. What it really means is that my mind kinda wanders sometimes. I can’t focus very good. I can’t sit still for very long and Mr. Harris knows that but he keeps sticking me in these two hour detentions and making me just sit there. And stare at the clock.” Stiles let out a frustrated breath. “You know he’s threatening to flunk me? Straight As and just because sometimes I get a little off topic - and creative - during boring and predictable essay questions doesn’t mean I haven’t been paying attention. I mean it’s chemistry right? Why the hell are there even essay questions to begin with?”

Derek was patient as Stiles ranted. It felt like a long time coming. “So I take Adderall,” he concluded. “Sometimes I forget to, and I can’t focus. And sometimes I take too much and…” He trailed off, realizing he’d said way more than the question necessary called for. Damnit.

“And…?” Derek prompted and Stiles’s gaze hardened slightly. Why was Derek being so patient? Why did he even care?

“And I end up not sleeping for three days,” he concluded. Or eating, really. Overdosing on Adderall was not fun. He found that out the hard way. “Can’t get my brain to shut up. Which is useful sometimes. During midterms. With all this werewolf bullshit. So much to read and not enough time.”

“How much have you been sleeping lately, Stiles?” Derek asked. And Stiles was still staring at him like he’d never seen the other boy before. Because who freaking asked questions like that?

“Uh uh,” Stiles tutted. “That’s a whole nother question. My turn.” He paused, waiting for Derek to argue, and when he didn’t, Stiles continued. “How did Peter resurrect himself?”

“A ritual,” Derek answered, the words coming out forced, like he’d rather just swallow them. Stiles could imagine why. Werewolves were probably supposed to keep these secrets from humans. “Every full moon is important. We have - I mean those born into it, real packs -” Stiles frowned, because it implied Derek thought his own pack wasn’t a real pack, “- they have rituals in celebration and honor of these moons. As you would worship a deity. The wolf moon is a day of feast. It’s a rite of passage - a coming of age. But the last full moon of March is the Moon of Worms.”

“Because that’s when the worms start showing in the ground?” Stiles prompted. Slowly, he moved away from the sink and took a seat at the table, across from Derek. Stiles immediately slouched in his chair, arm sprawled out on the table in front of him.

Derek looked impressed. “You’re right,” he agreed. “It’s a day of rebirth. So we feast. We bestow names on those born during the summer or the winter -”

“What if you’re born right after the moon of worms?” Stiles interjected.

Initially, Derek looked irritated, but it became suddenly obvious that Stiles was just curious. He wasn’t trying to be a smartass. “A baby can wait a year to be named. It won’t die,” he said tersely. “Can I finish?”

Stiles gave Derek the ‘by all means, continue’ gesture with his hand.

“Anyway. We welcome them officially into the pack during this feast. And that’s all we’re supposed to be doing. Giving thanks. Passing on traditions. But I’m sure as you know - there are people out there who use black magic. Who try to control the negative energies in the universe, and turn everything sour to suit their own selfish needs. We aren’t supposed to be selfish, Stiles. You live in a pack and you’re supposed to take every single member’s needs and wants into account. You’re supposed to be a unit, cohesive. Peter isn’t.”

“Alright,” Stiles said. “So Peter used negative energies - or whatever - how’d he do it?”

“I don’t know,” Derek admitted. “There are legends. About resurrection but I didn’t know all the pieces until then. He used Lydia to help him. I don’t know how.”

“But if he was dead, and she was unaware of what was happening most of the time - it means that he got into her head somehow, after his death,” Stiles supplied slowly, as the thought came together in his mind. Lydia had said it felt like a dream half of the time. But she had seemed clear in what she wanted to do too. “Could it be her immunity?”

“I’m almost entirely positive it is,” Derek agreed.

“So…” Stiles stabbed a finger at the table. “What you’re saying is that Peter didn’t intend to kill or turn her, he bit her because of her immunity - that he somehow knew all about without having met her before?”

Derek nodded. “Somehow,” he echoed.

“Maybe it has a smell?” Stiles asked.

“I would have smelt it.”

“No. Peter told me that deception has a smell too. And Scott deceived you and you didn’t smell it. Maybe it’s a smell you’ve never smelt before.” Stiles sounded sure of it.

Derek frowned. Stiles’s mind was working quickly. He was slotting together pieces it had taken Derek weeks to fit together. “When did you talk to Peter?”

Stiles clammed up immediately. “Uh…”

“No,” Derek said forcefully. “It’s my turn. When did you talk to Peter?”

Ah. Crap. “The night of the formal,” he answered begrudgingly. Derek realized it was embarrassingly easy to get answers out of Stiles when there was something he wanted on the table too. Intimidation didn’t work. But knowledge? Yeah. That worked just fine.

“And?” Derek pressed, clearly growing annoyed with Stiles’s reluctance.

“And I went looking for Lydia - because Jackson, the fucking dick, outted Scott to Allison’s dad. So I went looking for Lydia because she’d been looking for Jackson. And your uncle attacked her and when I got there - I mean I tried to tell her to run, I shouted it at her, as I ran across the field - but you know…what are you gonna do? That’s not exactly an everyday occurrence. Like anybody’s ever prepared for that. And he was knelt over her body - like - you know - a…”

“Animal,” Derek supplied when Stiles paused, searching for a word.

Stiles nodded quickly. “Right - he gave me a choice. Help him find you, or he was going to kill her. And when I told him I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about, he told me that deception has a particular smell.”

“And what did you do?”Derek asked. This was like an actual conversation. This back and forth. And it was weird.

“I traced Scott’s phone that you took when he went to stop you from killing Jackson. That’s why you took it right?” Stiles asked, looking at Derek. It was obvious from his expression that he already knew the answer.

“Yeah.” That was why he’d taken it. A part of him had known that it would be Stiles to make that connection, and not Scott; it wasn’t just that though. He had trusted that Stiles and Scott were so close that Stiles would have all of the information too. But it had taken too long. It had been Scott who had found him. “Why did Scott find me and not Peter?” He pressed.

Stiles sighed. He debated whether or not this was a whole new question before continuing. “I don’t know. Peter broke my keys. I had to run the entire way to the hospital.” Derek cocked his head because he heard that. The increase of Stiles’s heartbeat. “And when I got there, Scott wasn’t -”

“Wait,” Derek interrupted. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“What?”

“Your heart - it’s faster. Fear. Shame. Disappointment.” With each new emotion ticked off, Stiles’s frown grew deeper. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Stiles shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about it. He really didn’t. “If I tell you everything, how do I know you won’t take it back - your answers?”

“I won’t,” Derek said stiffly, even though he wanted to sound more reassuring. He wasn’t sure he remembered how to be. “I promise.”

Stiles studied him for a long minute, uncertain. God, his uncertainty was like a bleeding wound behind his eyes. But he gave in anyway in the end. “We were in a parking garage. Tracing Scott’s phone. And he broke my keys. Then he told me that since I helped him - after he gave this stupid speech about not being the bad guy; I’m sure the nurse he murdered would beg to differ - since I helped him, he would give me a reward. He offered me the bite.” Derek’s face darkened considerably. “As you can probably tell, I refused it. Obviously. Me not being a werewolf and everything. And seeing what happened to Jackson - how do I know that won’t happen to me too?”

Derek’s - face dark and drawn taut with anger - considered Stiles. “The Kanima is what happens when the outside of a person reflects the inside. Jackson was a snake, so he became a snake. And we cured him. You’re not a snake, Stiles. You just said that you ran straight into the face of death to save a girl who didn’t even know you existed last year. You’re not a snake.”

Stiles’s smile was reluctant and wry, like he thought Derek was lying, but he appreciated the lie. “I wanted to kill Jackson after the rave,” he said quietly. “I knew how to find you an entire day before Peter made me. Are you sure you really know me, Derek?”

Derek was quiet for a moment, the weight of what he’d just said settling heavy around his shoulders. “You’re not a snake,” he repeated, stubborn and sure of it. “Snakes don’t risk their own safety for the safety of others.”

Stiles shook his head. “So anyway. I had to run to the hospital. And my dad - he was freaking out - but he asked me where Scott was. Because Scott wasn’t there. I guess that’s when he went looking for you.”

“And you made the Molotov cocktails on your way to my house,” Derek supplied. Stiles wasn’t sure what expression was on his face. Approval, maybe. “Where’d you learn how to do that? Chemistry?”

Stiles shook his head. “No, remember when we got trapped in the school and Peter lured Allison there. Well, Lydia and Jackson were with her too. And when they all thought it was some crazed killer trapping us there - it was Lydia’s idea. She made them. It didn’t work. Because Jackson…” Stiles shook his head. “It had to have been Jackson, he was handing her all the ingredients. But I remembered what she’d said - what ingredients were in them.”

“Do you remember everything we say?” Derek asked and Stiles was already nodding before he realized it was another question - a different topic. “Photographic memory?”

Stiles shook his head slightly. “Nah, I dunno,” he said. “Photographic memory means you remember everything visually. Common misconception. This is more like Eidetic memory. I don’t just remember what I see - what I read aloud, in books - I don’t just remember that. I remember everything. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, I remember everything. And it fucks with my ADHD because with ADHD you’re more absent minded. So you forget where you put things. Which used to be a massive problem when I was a kid because I kept forgetting where I put my pills.” He shook his head at the memory. “But since I’m absent minded, and I have this outrageous memory - it gets kinda…” He shrugged slightly. “Unpredictable, I guess.”

“But you remember everything,” Derek echoed. “Like Peter hovering over Lydia’s body and how you felt when you thought she would die.” Stiles dipped his head slightly, in a barely there nod. “And the mechanic getting crushed to death.” Another jerky dip of his head. “You remember every minute of being in the pool for two hours?” A third dip. “You remember everything.”

“Sometimes,” Stiles allowed. “If I’ve been taking my meds. Sometimes…” He shrugged his shoulders, seemingly aborting that route of conversation. Sometimes he tried to stop his meds. Wean himself off of them. It was usually acts of anger more than anything. When he was younger, he used to get picked on alot for it. People used to call him a spaz or an airhead. They used to call him stupid and every other insulting name they could think of.

Stiles swallowed hard. “But back on topic - while I was at the hospital, my dad told me that the culprit of the fire was wearing a pendant. Like Allison’s. Why didn’t you tell anyone that Kate burned down your house?”

Derek shrugged, suddenly stiff and closed off again. “It’s a long story.” This was the problem between them. They were both so guarded; they didn’t want to give anything away. They didn’t want to admit any faults - they didn’t want to expose themselves to betrayal.

“Why didn’t you do anything about her?” He asked, quieter, softer this time, like he knew he was already on thin ice.

Derek shook his head. “Do you know what happens when you let vengeance control you?” He asked, surprisingly quiet. “Peter is what happens. When you’re so full of vengeance and anger that you stop living for anything else. Are you seriously asking me why I didn’t take the actions that my uncle took? I didn’t want to become that single action. Killing Kate; nothing else. I didn’t want that to be the only thing keeping me alive. So that when I finally did kill her, I wouldn’t know how to live afterwards. I wouldn’t want to live. I would feel like I finally fulfilled that one single thing I might be able to do right in my life.” He shook his head again. “I didn’t do anything. I lived. And I didn’t do that right, I know. But it’s important that I did it. It’s important that I learned how to move on. Maybe it’s even more important that Peter killed Kate. But it’s important, Stiles. That’s why I did nothing. Because by doing nothing, I was honoring my family.”

They were silent for a moment. Stiles, for the first time, didn’t know what to say. Derek, having filled his word quote for the year, didn’t feel the need to break the silence. Stiles swallowed audibly, rapping his fingers on the table. “You had control,” Stiles said. “And Allison…”

“Allison is a child,” Derek said, as if he knew what Stiles might say, and didn’t want to hear it. “Who lost two of her family members and didn’t know how to handle her grief. She reacted as any other person might. She reacted as Peter did. As you might if you lost your father. Allison is a human.”

Again, Stiles was silenced for the moment. He wasn’t prepared for this. For Derek to be calm, rational even while discussing his family’s gruesome murder. For Derek to be forgiving. He was taken aback. Unsettled. 

“Stiles. Are you done gawking - I can be a human too. Do you have any more questions or…” It seemed abrupt for Derek to be suddenly that impatient.

Stiles shook his head quickly to clear it. “Oh right. Why were your eyes blue?” He asked, perching forward in interest.

Derek frowned, because it was abruptly off topic. But they did have a deal. “The universe balances itself.”

“Yeah, I know, you already told me that. What does it mean?” Stiles pressed impatiently.

“When you take a life,” Derek said slowly, “You’re cursed with wearing a pendant of that crime for the rest of your life. It’s meant to be a stain. All wolves are born or created with yellow eyes. Alphas have red eyes. But those who murder people - their eyes turn blue.”

“And Jackson killed people, so his eyes are blue,” Stiles said. “But you did too. Who?”

Derek went quiet, and Stiles didn’t expect an answer, but then Derek seemed to come to a discussion and spoke anyway. “It was an accident,” he said quietly. “My family had just died and when you’re a werewolf, Stiles, your emotions control everything. Just as if you’re a human - but amplified. All these heighten senses - they don’t come without a consequence. Everything is amplified, even your weaknesses. That’s why it was so important for Scott to stay away from Allison. Because he was too young to know how to control his emotions. Lust, Anger - it’s all the same thing. You see red no matter what you feel and when you see red - when you get into that mindset, you murder people. It doesn’t matter if you love them.”

There was a certain way that Derek said ‘love’ like it was a mythological attribute nobody in the real world actually possessed. “So… you had a lot of anger…” Stiles said, quietly. They were all so very quiet, speaking in the kitchen in hushed tones, caught up in their conversation.

“I didn’t have a lot of anger,” Derek said. “I became my anger. I let it control everything I did. And one night, someone - just some idiot kid - picked a fight that he thought he could win. And I couldn’t control the anger. I hated humans and a human had the nerve to attack me.”

“And you killed him.”

Derek nodded. That alone was the exact reason he used his anger to anchor him, so he never made that mistake again. So he never allowed another person to dictate the actions he took in life. “There are repercussions for those kinds of acts. Every single wolf you meet will know exactly what you’ve done. They will judge you on a very core level - they will judge what kind of person you are, and they will turn you away. Because if you can’t control your emotions, then you’re useless to them.”

“You become a pariah,” Stiles murmured. “And Jackson - he never even had a chance.”

“He has a chance now.”


	3. Sinking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing._
> 
> \- Tyler Durden; Fight club

Since Stiles couldn’t tell his father everything he wanted to, he went to his mother’s grave. He sat down in front of her tombstone, perched his elbows on his knees and told her everything. Every single detail. Even the details he hadn’t told Scott. He told her about killing a man - Peter Hale - and added the ‘don’t worry though, evidently he’s not so dead anymore anyway.’ He told her about how that made him feel that night. Going home in his suit from the dance - now dirty and used. How happy he had been that morning - an almost-but-not-really-date with Lydia Martin. The thing he’d dreamed about for years. Wanted for years. And how that date hadn’t even been so bad. Sure she was concerned about Jackson, but they’d danced and everything. More than once, even. She’d put her head on his shoulder, her arms around his neck and didn’t say anything when he’d accidentally stepped on her feet. More than once. She’d smiled even, when he’d profusely apologized. How he had stood in the shower for two hours afterward, until the cold water had sufficiently sunk into his bones, before crawling into bed and trying to disappear forever beneath the weight of his oversized hoody. How he’d pulled his blanket down over him tight, like a cage and cried. He told her what it felt like to end a man’s life - whether he deserved it or not, and told her that he’d probably do it again, all over, no matter what. Because this man had locked them in a school. Had killed people in front of them. Had attacked Lydia. Had forced Stiles into helping him.

Had referred to Stiles as the clever one. Even though Stiles couldn’t focus worth shit. Even though he had a chemistry teacher hell bent on reminding him that he was so pathetically stupid. Even though nobody else - except for maybe Scott - thought he was clever at all. This killer. This villain. The stuff of movies. Had offered him the very thing he wanted, the very thing nobody else had thought to offer him, and then laughed at him for lying to himself and refusing it. This man - even after his death, even after his resurrection - made Stiles constantly doubt himself. And he told his mother all of this, and begged her not to think less of him. He apologized to her, for being such a crap son, for disappointing her, for the lies and the sins and every single thing he’d ever done wrong. 

He told her about Derek. And how they were evidently talking now. Behind his best friend’s back, because his best friend had drawn the line in the sand, but Stiles was too terrified - terrified of life, terrified of dying - to adhere to that line. He told her about Derek killing Peter. Technically. It was Stiles who came up with the idea to catch the man on fire. And what kind of a dickmove was that anyway? Catching a burn victim on fire? That was horrible.

He recounted their last conversation to his mother. The sudden realization. “How long have you known about this pack of Alphas?” Silence. “Derek? Have you known about it since before the Kanima? Since before Peter? Derek?” Silence. He told her about how Derek spoke with his posture more than his voice and how he’d been watching national geographic shows on wolf packs and hierarchy and how he thinks he might know why that is. He told her about how Derek had killed Peter to take the Alpha position - he knew that if Scott became Alpha he wouldn’t stand a chance against the pack. Then he demanded she tell him just what the fuck he was supposed to do with that kind of knowledge? Was he supposed to stop viewing Derek as the bad guy? Did he even still view Derek as the bad guy anymore? Just who the hell was this guy - and what fucking right did he have to force that kind of emotion onto Stiles? What fucking right did he have to force any kind of emotion onto Stiles? Stiles was doing just fine - caring about his father and Scott and Lydia. That was all the people he needed. He didn’t need Derek.

\----

Stiles found a flower tacked to Derek’s door. Wolfsbane. He tore the flower down and walked half a mile into the forest to deposit it, then he returned to Derek’s house and walked in. “Dude, they’re leaving you flowers now? Maybe they just wanna go steady. Compare their alpha notes with your alpha notes and see if you can’t all just be better alphas for it.” Unlike Scott, Stiles didn’t shout. Anywhere in the house, Derek would hear him.

Derek appeared at the top of the staircase, wearing his usual frown like a beloved accessory. “It’s a warning,” he said, slowly coming down the stairs.

“Ballsy too,” Stiles commented distractedly. “They must’ve worn gloves. Using their own weakness against you - the weakness of my enemy is my strength sort of gist. Nice,” he said approvingly.

“This isn’t a movie, Stiles,” Derek snapped, his patience for the entire situation obviously wearing thin.

“When art reflects life, life starts to reflect art, grasshopper,” Stiles dismissed. “So why don’t we just do that?” He gestured between Derek and himself with his index finger. “Embrace your weakness. Use it to your advantage? What kills you - will kill them too. You already know everything you need to know so why don’t we start using it? What do you know? How do hunters kill you?”

Derek frowned at him. He didn’t want to give Stiles that kind of ammunition. For a minute, it looked like he wasn’t going to answer, but then he relinquished. Because this would all help him in the end. How many times had he asked Scott for help? Maybe now it was time to ask Stiles. “One by one,” he answered. “Because werewolves are naturally stronger than humans. They regenerate faster. They move faster. They process sounds, sights, smells faster. It’s easier to gang up on one and take the pack down individually. With each member killed, the pack becomes weaker. Until there’s just the alpha - and when an alpha doesn’t have a pack, he’s not an Alpha. He’s an Omega.”

Stiles nodded. He was really loving this information sharing thing they had going on. “Okay, that’s good. An entire pack of Alphas will be stronger than you too, even though you’re an Alpha. They’ll be stronger since they literally have no weak member. So you take them down one by one. Do you have any clue what happened to Erica and Boyd?”

Derek shook his head. “They left. They went Omega.”

“Before or after the lacrosse game?” Stiles asked, cocking an eyebrow. These questions all felt too little, too late. They should have covered it over a month ago. 

Derek didn’t look interested in the conversation. “During. Why?”

“Because after the lacrosse game, Gerard Argent had them tied up in his basement. I don’t know what happened to them after that - but that’s where they were when we were fighting the Kanima. Do you have any idea what happened to them?” He repeated, more pressing this time.

Derek shook his head. “No.” Derek turned on Stiles, poking a finger his chest. “The Alpha pack is encroaching on my territory. I can smell them everywhere. It’s possible they took them as a warning.” Stiles went with the point, rubbing his chest. “Is that what happened to your face? Gerard Argent?”

“No. A warning?” Stiles echoed, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Yes. You’re only as strong as your weakest member, and my weakest members are omegas. They left me. You’re lying.”

“Do you think that means… they’re dead?” Stiles asked slowly, uncrossing his arms and wringing his hands. This was his fault. If he had just told them what had happened - instead of moping in his room… if he had just tried harder…

“No,” Derek said, eyeing Stiles closely, as if he could read the expressions on Stiles’s face. It made Stiles want to back up; to hide his face; to keep that one simple privacy to himself. “I bit them. Whether or not I’m their Alpha, I would feel it. They don’t feel dead. What are you lying?”

Stiles breathed easier. “Okay. Good. Well for this tactic to work - you kind of need more than Isaac. Not that he isn’t doing awesome with his whole werewolfness now… Because I don’t feel comfortable I got my ass kicked by a ninety year old man, obviously.”

“Why do you care?” Derek asked. He leaned back against the burnt frame of the doorway. It took Stiles a moment to realize Derek wasn’t talking about Gerard with that question. “What happens. Scott’s not a part of it anymore. Nothing ties you to this - you don’t need to be involved.”

“I have to do something.”

“But why?” Derek pressed. There was a weight to the gaze he pinned on Stiles that made him uncomfortable. He couldn’t stay still.

“Because people die. People always die. And I have this feeling that it’s going to be bad this time. It isn’t going to be about vengeance this time. It’s just going to be mindless murder. I can’t just sit still and wait for these murders to completely drown my town, okay? I have to do something this time.”

Derek was quiet for a moment, just watching Stiles. “Stiles, you think you didn’t do something the other -?” A sound tore through the silence of the house. It was an arrow. “Cover your eyes!” Derek shouted, diving for Stiles. Stiles made an ‘oomph’ sound as Derek hit him and they both hit the ground hard. Derek’s body pinned Stiles to the ground, shielding him. Stiles threw a hand over his eyes as his head hit the ground. The arrow lodged itself in a wall and a bright flash erupted around it, lighting up the entire house briefly. White shone against his eyelids before fading. There was a stillness and into that stillness, Stiles asked, “hunters?”

“No.”

And then there was movement and Derek was torn from his body and flung back across the room, crashing through a wall that did little to slow his momentum. Stiles barely had time to get a glimpse of the man who had thrown Derek, and then the man moved - away from Stiles and after Derek. Stiles scrambled to his hands and knees, and frantically searched for a weapon. He found a hand held axe by the fireplace - why? Who the hell used this fire place anymore? - and snatched it up.

So much for attacking this pack individually. The man who had thrown Derek came crashing back through the wall, creating a second hole, and shaking the entire structure of the building. Derek stood on the other side of the wall. “Run,” he growled. He had already shifted.

Stiles tore out of the door, axe in hand, the voice in the back of his head reminding him what happened when you ran with scissors probably also happened when you ran with axes. Halfway down the dirt path, he physically ran right into Isaac and jumped back, lifting the axe to strike him. Isaac caught his swinging arm and they both stared at each other with wide eyes, resembling two frightened animals.

“Derek -” Isaac began.

“House - Alpha pack - go,” Stiles said, panting, waving back at the house in the distance with his free arm. “Scott -”

“Behind me,” Isaac said back. “Got Jackson. Get out of here.”

Stiles nodded. Okay. That was good. Okay. Isaac took a step toward the house. His hand left Stiles’s arm for just a second.

The night was silent. Whatever natural insect life existed in this part of the woods had been chased away by encroaching predators. The sound of an arrow ripping through the still air was loud, and Isaac had a second to act. He jerked Stiles by the arm, hard, and shoved him to the ground. The axe left Stiles’s hand and Isaac threw it - flung it into the darkness, using his sense of hearing and nothing else. The arrow missed Stiles and buried itself in Isaac’s shoulder about the same time that a muffled scream tore through the still forest, but it wasn’t Isaac who had screamed. There was a heavy second, where Isaac stared down at the arrow, wide eyed, before he collapsed backward, dropping like a weight. The ground he hit gave way beneath him, and he fell down into a pit. A blanket of grass must have covered it before, because there definitely had not been a fucking hole there before.

Stiles scrambled to his knees, and crawled to the edge of the pit, and stopped. Inside of the pit were a dozen stakes - and on one of the stakes - Isaac was impaled. Even in the dark, even from here, Stiles could see the tip of the stake jutting out from Isaac’s stomach. He could see the blood gushing from the boy’s mouth.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

He heaved himself over the edge of the pit and dropped down, clinging to the side because wouldn’t that just be his luck to accidentally impale himself on a stake? Stiles rushed to Isaac’s side and floundered - what the fuck was he supposed to do? “Shit.”

“I think there’s…” Isaac’s entire face screwed up as he swallowed blood, choked, and then swallowed some more blood. “Something off. I can - hn - burning my insides.” His breath rattled in his chest, and came out wet. His eyelids fluttered, and closed for a long moment before he managed to force them back open.

“Holy fucking hell,” Stiles muttered. “Wolfsbane.” He touched the stake with his bare hands and tried to push it, but it was embedded too well into the ground. He paused, took a breath and then rammed into the stake. Isaac made a sound that was stuck somewhere between a moan and a whimper as the stake moved, but it didn’t move enough. So Stiles rammed into it again and again until his entire side was numbed, until he uprooted the stake enough that it tipped over. 

Isaac hit the dirt packed floor and Stiles stopped, hunched over and panting. His arm hurt, but he ignored it. He pulled the stake of Isaac and dropped it. “Isaac, buddy, hey, Isaac -” He knelt, rolling Isaac onto his back. The wound in his gut wasn’t healing. “Isaac, get up - you gotta get up dude -”

“Still burns,” Isaac said so faintly, the only way Stiles knew he’d spoken at all was that his lips had moved.

“Dere-” Stiles started in a shout, rising to his feet. Then he stopped, because there was the steel tip of a knife pressed against his jaw, and a suddenly solid body behind him.

“You’re not a wolf,” a voice purred behind him. She was smiling, he could hear it in her voice. He could feel it in her chest, pressed up against his back. “Little Red Riding Hood. You’re not a wolf.” A hand on his arm spun him around, and away from Isaac, to face the person behind him.

She was tall, and built, and blonde. Her hair was pulled back into a sloppy bun, tendrils of hair slithering down the back of her neck and over her shoulders. And the knife hadn’t left his jaw. “Leather jacket,” Stiles said, and his voice only wavered a little bit. “Do all the werewolves have meetings on dress codes or is that just a personal preference? For every werewolf. In existence. Ever. Do they hand out leather jackets when you’re turned or…”

The edge of the knife dug into the curve of his jaw and he swallowed hard. “When you run with wolves, human, you better learn how to howl…” The knife trailed - mockingly - down his throat, and then his chest. “Poor sheep, out of his depth, among wolves. Don’t you know that you shouldn’t stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong?” Then the knife plunged into his stomach and Stiles sucked in a startled gasp, eyes going wide. His hands came down, hovered around the hand clutching the knife - trembling, twitching, shaking - but it was like he couldn’t reach her hand. Like he’d forgotten how to. His entire body caved in around that single point, his back going rigid. “Howl for me,” she murmured, and yanked the knife out of him.

Air whooshed out of Stiles’s gaping mouth, a raw, high-pitched whimper, and then he fell back, crashing to the ground beneath him. Isaac was somewhere beside him, but he had forgotten all about Isaac. He touched his stomach, trembling fingers skimming over the quickly soaking sweat shirt. Blood gushed through his fingers, as pain radiated out from the hole in him. It wasn’t the cut that hurt though - his entire stomach felt like he’d taken a couple dozen punches to the gut.

He stared up at the dark sky. He thought about how light had a speed limit. About how all the stars he was staring up at were already dead. Walking corpses, still shining. How if a civilization 65 million light years away were to look through a telescope, they wouldn’t see Earth inhabited by giant skyscrapers and billions of humans. They would have a front row seat to the extinction of the dinosaurs. They would see everything die. They would see that meteorite - a meteorite that no longer existed - plow into Earth. That’s why the whole theory of aliens coming to earth to colonize humans didn’t really stick. Because to aliens - humans were blips in a radar that didn’t even see them - not yet. 

To aliens, humans didn’t matter.

“Stiles.” Someone was shaking him, and he lifted a hand to weakly bat the offensive hand away, but he didn’t quite make the contact. He peeled open his eyes and Scott swam in front of his eyes. He blinked several times, really slowly; with each blink his eyes grew more unwilling to open again. Scott had a hand on his stomach, pressing down over Stiles’s hand. “Stiles. Hey. Stay with me. It’s okay. You’re okay. Stiles!”

Stiles snapped his eyes open again. “I got fucking stabbed, dude.” He sounded drunk. His tongue felt too thick for his mouth. Dry. It reminded me of a slug once you dump salt on it. God, did he pity the slug. His pain felt too far away. His voice sounded thrashed - all high-pitched and uncontrolled. “Dinosaurs are extinct, but the aliens don’t know that, man… They don’t know how small everything’s gotten, man. Small.”

Scott shot a glance to the side. “Jackson - fucking step on it -”

“I’m going as fast as humanly possible,” Jackson shouted back over his seat.

Stiles wasn’t sure if now was the time to laugh or not, but he did anyway. Weak and breathless and it made everything hurt more. Jackson wasn’t a human. “It’s okay,” Scott told Stiles, ignoring Jackson. “We’re getting you to the hospital. Just don’t pass out.”

“I don’t think you have control over passing out,” Stiles pointed out distantly. “I mean I don’t. I don’t have control.” His mouth was dry. “Isaac -”

“Isaac’s fine,” Scott said quickly. “We got him, don’t worry.”

Stiles nodded and felt sleep. “Mmkay,” he agreed.

“Stiles!” Scott slapped him and Stiles’s eyes snapped open again. “What did I just say? Don’t fucking pass out!”

“Okay, okay,” Stiles said sleeping. “Calm down. Was it - that woman - she -” He tilted his head to look down at his stomach. His entire shirt was drenched in blood. It was sticking to his stomach, heavy, water logged.

“It wasn’t the Argents,” Scott said.

“But wolfsbane -”

“I know,” Scott said. “It was werewolves using wolfsbane.”

“That was my fucking idea,” Stiles said. “Are we in a car?” Stiles asked, finally realizing that he was rocking slightly, back and forth, the motion threatening to lull him to sleep.

“Derek’s, yeah,” Scott said. “Just… could you just hold on for a little while longer? We’re almost there.”

“I been holding on all year, Scott,” Stiles said, growing more distant. His fingers twitched beneath Scott’s hand. “Feel like I’m choking. Can’t breathe. Hurts. All year.”

Stiles didn’t take in much after that. He felt himself lifted from the car and carried into the hospital. The whites all blurred together as he was wheeled down the hall and only then did he finally drag in a drowning breath, swallowing water and choking, and passed out.


	4. Drowning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing.
> 
> \- Herodotus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to a good friend of mine, we've got a banner for the fic.
> 
> [](http://s206.photobucket.com/albums/bb197/robinraeburne/Random/?action=view&current=bannerfinal.jpg)

The first thing Stiles was aware of was the muted buzz of the machines. He knew exactly where he was before he even opened his eyes, from the whirl of machines - from the smell - alone. He was in a hospital. He hated hospitals. Stiles groaned, lifted a hand to rub his head and poked himself in the eye with the clunky heart monitor attached to his finger. “Fuck,” he groaned, lifting his other hand to rub his eye. “Shit.” His throat felt scraped raw.

He opened his eyes at the laughter; his eyelids felt like they had anchors attached to them, but he managed it. Jackson was slouched down in the chair beside the bed which was a mind fuck all on its own. Nobody could really explain why Jackson hadn’t died. Which was fine by Stiles - but it really fucked over the EMTs, who had jobs riding on that. You can’t just pronounce - he never really understood why the term was ‘pronounce’ instead of ‘announce’ but whatever - a kid dead and have that kid turn up to not really be dead.

“Smooth,” Jackson said, but his grin didn’t really leave his face.

“What are you doing here?” Stiles croaked. Jackson got up to give Stiles a glass of water. He reconsidered it, and then put a hand at the back of Stiles’s neck and helped him take several hungry gulps of water. Jackson sat the glass back down on the table beside the bed and Stiles sank back down against the pillow.

Jackson shrugged, once he was seated in his chair again. “We’re all taking shifts,” he answered.

“If they wanted me dead, they would’ve cut my throat - I don’t really think shifts are necessary,” Stiles said, lowering a hand to his stomach. Idly, he fingered the bandage. The wound beneath them felt raw, but it was a distant kind of raw, obviously from the drugs. They made him feel languid, like he was floating. It was nice but he hated it at the same time.

Jackson shrugged again. He didn’t look interested in the conversation at hand. “Hale doesn’t want you to die. I don’t know what you want me to do about it.”

Stiles stared at Jackson. “You play insubordinate now?”

“Are you trying out for the role of asshole, asshole?” Jackson shot back. “Shut up and turn on the TV.”

Stiles fingered the bandage beneath his gown. “What happened? How’d you… not die?” Jackson gave Stiles a look. There was anger and incredulity in that look. “Nobody died, right?” Stiles pressed. 

“Nobody died,” Jackson snapped. “We didn’t do anything. Derek threw one of their own down into the pit and they kinda backed off after that. Pussies. Dude took one of the spikes through his neck and when they pulled him off of it - you could see his brains leaking out. The whole back of his head was just gone. Is that a thing we can regenerate?”

Stiles shrugged and hissed in a breath through his teeth. “I don’t know,” he groaned. 

Jackson shrugged again. “So anyway, after that, they ran off. Probably to regroup. There was only five of them. And with me, Derek, Mccall and Lahey - we could nearly match them. ‘Course Lahey did us a fuck lot of good, getting taken out in the beginning like that.”

“They had it set up,” Stiles said thoughtfully. “They hit him with an arrow - wolfsbane, I assume - just so he would fall back into the pit. They let gravity do their work for them. That’s smart.”

“Then your dumbass jumped down there to cut him down,” Jackson filled in.

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed. “But they knew I wasn’t a werewolf.”

“How do you know?” Jackson asked. 

“She used a knife to stab me,” Stiles said. “No wolfsbane. And she told me not to stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong,” he added, quieter, fingers drumming distractedly on his side.

“I bet you hear that a lot, Stilinski,” Jackson hummed disinterestedly. 

Stiles shot him a look. “They fight like hunters,” he said, his gaze turning thoughtful. “Flashbombs, wolfsbane, pits dug into the forest. Why do you think that is?”

Jackson looked surprised that Stiles was even asking him a question - for his input. “Because they are hunters…?” He asked uncertainly. It wasn’t really an answer, it was more of a guess in a ‘what the fuck are you expecting to hear, Stilinski?’ kind of way. “Derek turned Allison’s mom right?” Stiles looked surprised that Jackson had even been lucid enough to know that. Jackson narrowed his eyes at him. “I know things, alright? Shut up. He turned her mom right? What if that’s what happened. Some smartass werewolf bit a hunter, made them deal with the shame of the bite. And instead of offing themselves like Allison’s mom - they took to it. Became an Alpha. Hunted werewolves. And started up a group of other hunters who wanted to be the best they could be - army strong.”

Stiles’s smile was brief. “Wait - what if Derek didn’t bite Allison’s mom - what if an Alpha did? One of these Alphas? What if that’s how they fill out their ranks?”

“That’s a lot of what ifs, Stilinski,” Jackson pointed out.

Stiles waved it away. “Dude - that’s how every great mystery of Beacon Hills starts. That’s how I found out about werewolves. How did you find out?”

“Mccall,” Jackson said pointedly. His head perked up, tilting slightly. It set Stiles on edge, because it reminded him of Derek - of Scott - when they listened to something out of his own hearing range. Jackson wasn’t looking at him anymore, his eyes were fixed on the door, as if he could see right through it. 

“Jackson - what -”

“Shut up,” Jackson said, but there was no bite to it. There was an urgency, as Jackson stood up. And then the door opened and a woman stood there. Blonde. Tall. Built. And Stiles tensed. He saw her arm jerking forward, burying the knife in his gut all over again. But she just stood there, smiling. 

Jackson moved forward and the woman held up a hand. “I told you to stay out of it,” she said, looking past Jackson, at Stiles. 

“I haven’t done anything,” Stiles pointed out. He sounded breathless, almost desperate for the woman to get it - he hadn’t had the chance to stay away from it.

“Yet,” she said stiffly. “Yet. Little boy. I told you to stay out of it. Stop thinking. Stop talking. Shut up and mind your own business.”

“Is that what you said?” Stiles hedged, picking at his thin blanket. “Right before you stabbed me? Because that entire conversation is a little fuzzy. Probably shouldn’t have stabbed me. I hear that’s a side effect of -”

“Shut up, Stilinski,” Jackson hissed at him. If Jackson had fur, Stiles knew it would be standing on end, haunches raised. 

The woman smiled. “Poor wolf,” she purred, moved forward. Jackson growled and Stiles started. The woman’s step didn’t even falter, until she was standing right in front of Jackson. She reached out and traced the nail of her index finger down his cheek. Jackson set his jaw. “So far out of your depth. Did your Alpha warn you about this? Did he prepare you?”

“I’m prepared,” Jackson said stiffly. More prepared than anyone. He still had the fight to survive. He still had the drive. More than soft spoken Isaac, more than AWOL Erica and Boyd. More than oblivious Mccall. He was better than them. 

The woman’s nail elongated, the claw cutting deep into Jackson’s skin. But Jackson steeled his expression and didn’t react to it. It made the woman laugh and bring her claw to her mouth. She licked the blood off of her finger. “If you’re lucky, maybe we’ll even give you place among our ranks.”

“Unless you’re hunters,” Jackson said, voicing Stiles’s thoughts - thoughts he knew better than to voice.

The woman sighed, tutting. “I told you to stay out of it,“ she told Stiles, almost sadly. “You open your mouth and you put thoughts into their heads, thoughts they would have never considered before you. Thoughts you can’t take back now. It’s rude.”

Jackson was still standing between the woman and Stiles - like a self-appointed bodyguard. But it was all for show, because she was an Alpha. If she truly wanted, she could have removed Jackson. “How old are you?” Stiles asked. He could see a twitch in Jackson’s clenched jaw.

“Rude,” the woman continued. “I don’t intend to answer your questions. You’ll just construe the answers in ways I don’t intend you to.”

Jackson scoffed. The cut on his cheek hadn’t healed. One straight line of severed flesh from just beneath his right eye all the way down to his chin. “Just how smart do you think he is? You know he’s failing econ, right? He draws platypuses on essay questions. Trust me, he’s not that smart.”

Stiles opened his mouth, gawking. “The platypuses have speech bubbles, okay? They’re speech giving platypuses - platypie? - very rare and unique...so…”

Jackson laughed. “If this guy is your downfall, I will laugh at you. Loud. Obnoxious laughter. My laughter will follow you all the way to hell. We’re gonna put that on your tombstone - we’re going to cut you in half and bury you, and buy you a tombstone just to mock you on it.”

It was Stiles’s turn to laugh but the woman didn’t look amused. Her hand snapped out, claws slashing across - and through - Jackson’s throat. Jackson stumbled back, gurgling. He choked on blood, but what air he sucked in never made it past the gaping wound in his throat. Stiles sat up straighter in his bed, his entire body trembling with the exertion. “This is the last time,” the woman said, ignoring Jackson and staring at Stiles. Jackson fell back, hitting the ground hard, hands spasming around his throat. There was blood everywhere. God. So much blood. “Stay out of it - or the next throat I cut will be yours, and we’ll see how quickly you regenerate from that.”

Stiles heaved himself to his feet, and took a few steps toward Jackson. There was a tug and he tore off the heart monitor. He tore out the IV needle and dropped down beside Jackson - his own body too heavy and too eager to let gravity pull him to the ground. He pressed his hands to Jackson’s throat, and Jackson’s hands spasmed around his own. His hands trembled, grabbed for Stiles’s shoulder and clutched him hard enough to bruise - as if he needed something to grasp, to remind him that he wasn’t sinking through the floor. Jackson’s eyes were so wide - so terrified. Stiles pressed his hands harder against the wound. It was spurting blood. Jesus. Stiles had blood on his face.

This was how they killed Peter - what if Jackson couldn’t regenerate from it? He pressed harder. And he stayed like that forever. Until Jackson’s body stopped shaking beneath his. Until Jackson’s hand on his arm slackened. Until Jackson’s breathing slowed. He didn’t know when he’d started crying, or how long he had been on his knees, pressing down onto the boy’s throat, hunched over his body - shaking with sobs. 

The door opened and he didn’t hear it. He jumped when the hand touched his shoulder. His head snapped up, tilting back to find Derek and then it was like a dam had broken. Whatever resolve Stiles had clung onto completely crumbled and he sobbed. “Derek - She - Fuck -”

Derek knelt down on Jackson’s other side and had to pry Stiles’s fingers off of his neck just to get the boy to let go. He smeared the blood on Jackson’s neck. “Stiles -”

“She fucking slashed his throat,” Stiles interrupted. “What are we going to do? He’s dead and my heart monitor - they’re going to know - they’re going to be here any second now and -”

“Stiles,” Derek said louder. He hooked a hand around the back of Stiles’s neck and jerked, until the boy’s head dropped and he stared down at Jackson. “You see that?” He smoothed the first few fingers of his other hand across Jackson’s neck. The skin was pink and raw. The gaping hole was still there, but the skin around the hole was pink - and knitting back together. “He’s healing.”

Stiles stared down at it, dumbstruck. He wiped his arm across his eyes, trying to clear up his vision but he did little more than smear blood across his face. “I don’t know understand,” he said. He sounded so lost, so confused. “I thought - Scott said - you can’t heal immediately from an Alpha cut. It shouldn’t be...” His throat was too thick with tears. He rubbed his fingers across Jackson’s neck, just to make sure he wasn’t see things.

“Alpha cuts don’t heal as quickly,” Derek agreed calmly. “But if they’re this severe - if you could die from them - our healing is triggered, no matter what.”

“He’s healing,” Stiles echoed, in sheer wonderment. His head hurt and his cheeks ached from crying. 

“He’s healing,” Derek confirmed gently. His fingers rubbed circles into the base of Stiles’s neck. “He’s healing. It’s okay. No harm done.”

Stiles nodded, eyes stuck on Jackson’s neck. There was blood everywhere. How were they going to explain all of that? His arms were bloody, all the way up to his elbows and across his face - jesus. But the squirting had stopped at some point. Jackson had gone still, except for the fingers curled in Stiles’s gown - loose but still there. “Jesus,” he whispered, fingering the slowly shrinking wound in Jackson’s neck. “These Alphas are not fucking around.”

Derek tensed at the reminder. “What did they want this time?”

“It’s my fault,” Stiles said. “It’s all my fault. All of this. It was a warning. To stay out of it. To stop putting thoughts in your head. All of it.”

“So why’d they attack Jackson if they already delivered that message to you?” Derek pressed. His hand hadn’t left Stiles’s neck and Stiles liked it. A weighty reminder. Comforting.

“I can’t tell you that,” Stiles said quietly, desperately. “Me and Jackson were talking, kicking around theories and I think he struck too close to the truth. They seem clever but you don’t have to be a genius to know how to read a few books and use your own weakness against your enemy. If they hadn’t done anything, we would’ve dismissed the theory. It was too random, too perfect; not to mention none of the evidence really backed it up. It was just a hypothesis. But they attacked Jackson - which is the greatest thing they could have done - to back up our theory. They’re not smart. They’re just pretending.”

Stiles was talking fast. He was raw and emotional and hyped up on sorrow and adrenaline. Derek rubbed a few more circles into the back of his neck. “Alright,” he said at last. “Come on. We have to get you cleaned up. And we have to clean up this mess before anybody decides to check up on you.” He helped Stiles up and ushered him to the bathroom. “I’ll give Isaac a call. Tell him he has next shift. Jackson’ll need time to recuperate.”

Stiles nodded. He was too numb for this bullshit. It had been a long time - a very long time - since he’d felt such extreme emotion. Such grief. Such panic. He didn’t care enough to analyze why he cared that much for Jackson. Jackson was a kid he knew. Jackson was somebody. And Jackson had gotten cut down right in front of him. Because of him. “What about Scott?” He asked. Jackson could not have been his first choice.

Derek pushed him back against the sink in the bathroom. He swung the door shut and then turned on the shower. “Scott was here all night,” he said. “He’s here when your dad’s here. Everybody else gets the other shifts.”

“Wait,” Stiles said. “How long has it been? How long have I been out?”

“Three days,” Derek said, ushering Stiles toward the shower. “Shit, you tore your stitches.” 

Stiles glanced down at his stomach. “How can you tell? It could be Jackson’s blood -” Derek tapped his nose. “-oh. Right. Super werewolf powers.”

Derek smiled, brief and grim. “Shower. I’ll clean everything up. I‘ll find you a new hospital gown.” Derek moved back, opening the door.

That really shouldn’t be as comforting as it was. It felt like a weight lifted off of his chest. “Derek?” Stiles asked, and Derek paused, halfway out of the door. “Thanks.” 

Derek nodded once and then disappeared through the door, closing it behind him.


	5. Equilibrium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So great was the extremity of his pain and anguish, that he did not only sigh but roar.
> 
> \- matthew henry

When Stiles left his bathroom, Jackson was gone. The blood was gone. Derek had left a gown in the bathroom while he was in the shower, but Derek was gone now too. The room looked untouched. A nurse chose that time to poke her head into the room and Stiles barely got out the ‘had to pee’ because his chest felt so tight. 

He returned to his bed, and spent the next week expecting Derek to return to tell him that it was a false alarm - that Jackson had died after all. He spent the week expecting another Alpha to show up to kill him, because killing him would silence him far better than any threat. He spent the week deathly silent, too scared to say a word. Too scared to open his mouth and gasp in a breathe. His lungs burned, like they were full of water, like he was sinking deeper, like he couldn’t even look up and see the surface anymore. 

Every night he slept, he woke up screaming, and spent the entire rest of the day silent. Finally, after the first few days, his doctor advised he move around - take small walks, work up his strength, get out of the hospital bed - but it was all done in silence. Talking was what had gotten him into this position and he wanted out of it. At some point Scott brought his computer, as if he knew Stiles was going stir crazy - should be going stir crazy. Stiles didn’t touch it. He didn’t play tetris to occupy his mind, he didn’t do research. He didn’t touch it. He laid in the bed, he slept, he screamed, he ate whatever they put in front of him, and he didn’t talk. 

One night, he woke up to find his doctor and his father discussing his condition. The knife had missed his vital organs. The cut had been jagged, as if someone had jerked the knife. It would scar and no amount of surgery would be able to prevent that. Of course Stiles had the option to get plastic surgery, but his father shook his head and scratched back over his head and muttered ‘Stiles wouldn’t want that.’ All that money on something as shallow and vain as scar prevention - Stiles wouldn’t want that.

Stiles blinked and took in his father. He looked tired. Exhausted. He looked like he had no right to even been capable of standing right now. His shoulders sagged, and his entire body seemed to be desperately fighting the lure of gravity. And losing.

The doctor went on to talk about how Stiles’s muteness might correlate with his own personal trauma. Post Traumatic Stress was what the doctor supposed. It should pass given time - given possible therapy. It should pass. Stiles could be discharged at the end of the week, if his stats remained positive. The doctor gave his father a card - the phone number to the therapist he advised Stiles be submitted to, before he ducked out of the room. Stiles closed his eyes again as his father sat back down into the chair.

He fell asleep before his father left. He wished he’d fallen asleep before his father started to cry.

\-------

“Stiles.” Scott snapped his fingers in front of Stiles’s face. Stiles blinked. He must’ve spaced out. The days were beginning to merge into one blur. His gaze refocused, this time on Scott.

“He hasn’t said anything,” Erica said.

Stiles’s head snapped around to look at her. When the hell had she gotten here? He could have sworn he’d been awake the entire time - but he hadn’t noticed her entrance. He didn’t even know what had happened to her - her return - any of it. Questions swam in his eyes when he fixed them back on Scott, but Scott read his expression easily.

“A message,” Scott answered. “Derek started receiving pieces of them - Erica and Boyd - the day after the Alpha paid you a visit. They were trying to draw him out.” Stiles’s eyes snapped back over Erica, looking her over, but he couldn’t find any missing pieces. “Werewolves regenerate severed limbs, evidently,” Scott said, sounding a lot like he was reciting something he was told. “It served no purpose, they were just being dicks about it. So Derek went after them. He lost.”

Stiles’s eyes widened at that. Was Derek - did that mean he was dead? How fucking long had it been? Erica laughed, low and mirthless. “He didn’t die, dweeb,” she said. “He got his ass kicked. We all did.” 

If Stiles had been talking, he would’ve echoed the ‘we’. And maybe Scott was better at this than he realized, because Scott answered that unvoiced question too. It was easy to forget how many times Scott had visited him - forced to carry the weight of this one sided conversation Stiles pushed onto him. “Omegas don’t usually return to their pack. The Alphas gave them a choice. Again - just because their dicks. Massive dicks. Big, floppy dicks. Dicks. They told Erica and Boyd they could join them. Help them kill Alphas, become Alphas themselves. No running. No pain. As they cut off... you know... stuff. And mailed them to Derek. No running. No pain. They both turned them down. It’s about loyalty and they stayed loyal. So when Derek went after them - they stayed loyal.”

Scott sat down on the edge of his bed. “And god - we got our asses kicked. They had all these booby traps - like Argent’s. But more sadistic. It wasn’t about trapping us, it was about hurting us. Pain makes you stay human, you remember?”

Stiles might have nodded, but he couldn’t really remember moving. He tilted his head back against his pillow, tired. “But we had a plan B. Inspired by you.” Stiles shook his head, not comprehending. “Jackson told us about your theory. That the Alphas are hunters? So we went to Argent. If anybody knows hunters - it’s him. He wouldn’t tell us his secrets though. Figures. And Allison…” He shook his head. “She wouldn’t even touch this.” There was a soft, raw kind of sadness to his voice. “But while we were getting our asses handed to us, Argent set them free. They escaped. We escaped.”

“It’s a win,” Erica said. Stiles fingered his bandaged distractedly. Some fucking win.

Scott weakly punched his shoulder, forcing him to return his attention to Scott. “It’s a win,” he echoed Erica’s sentiment. “And you get out of here tomorrow. And we can…” Scott floundered for the words. They could what? Stiles hadn’t said a word in a week. Stiles had gotten stabbed. Stiles went into surgery - he had a blood transfusion - he could have died without it. Stiles watched another sixteen year old boy bleed out in front of him. Stiles.

“I don’t know what to do, man,” he said quietly, fingers tightening on Stiles’s shoulder. “And you’re usually the one there telling me what to do, and you’re not there and I don’t know what to do.” Scott sounded as helpless as he felt. He sounded like he was on uneven ground, like the floor beneath him was breaking right under his feet and he was just barely managing to stay standing. 

Stiles swallowed hard and opened his mouth. He needed to say something. He wanted to. He wanted to so badly but the words failed him. Nothing came. He reached out for Scott, tangled a hand in the back of his shirt and tugged him into a clumsy hug. Scott hugged him hard - so hard his bones ached - and it felt great. It felt real. 

Stiles held out a hand in Erica’s direction. He waved it impatiently when she didn’t move. Erica rose up and sat on the edge of the bed beside Scott. Somehow, it turned into a group hug; the three of them clinging to each other as if their life depended on it. 

“We’re going to kill them,” Erica said, speaking against the crook of Stiles’s neck. Her breath tickled across his skin and distantly he realized that this was the closest a female had ever been to him, but there was nothing sexual about it - about this. It was comfort. That was all it was. “We will. We’re going to kill them for what they did. We’re going to kill them for us, and for you, and for every other person they touched. No one will ever silence you again, Stiles. No one will ever silence any of us again.”

Stiles’s arm tightened around Erica’s waist and he nodded distantly, but the words burrowed their way into his skin and lived there - multiplying. Procreating. Festering. Eating away at him like a cancerous growth. Spreading. Blackening parts of him. They were going to find a way to kill this pack. And they were not going to be too kind about it. This was going to be a war, a blood bath.

\---------

Stiles was taken home. He stayed in his room for three days, leaving it only for bathroom breaks and the rare moments that his father dragged him down to dinner, but he didn’t talk. The rest of the time he threw himself into research. He researched everything. He emailed Argent about advice, because emailing was easier than calling. It was a genuine surprise when Argent answered his email with short and to the point answers. The man more or less adequately answered his question, leaving out as much of the answer as he possibly could without the answers turning into meaningless statements. They helped. Stiles added them to his notebook. He added a lot of things to his notebook.

He made a list of what he knew. He knew the Alphas used the tools of a hunter. Pits dug into the ground and full of stakes - letting gravity do their work for them so that they could reserve their strength - just like a human might need to. They used arrows and flashbombs and wolfsbane - once more letting weapons do their work for them, as if they didn’t have claws of their own; strength of their own. He knew that the woman had attacked Jackson because they were talking about the possibility of the alphas being hunters. That was the most important piece he had. There were a lot of assumptions he could make based on it, and it was the reason he emailed Argent in the first place. 

They passed back and forth half a dozen emails, each answer of Argent’s widening the doorway for more questions. He could easily adapt what he knew about hunters to these alphas and presume it was fact. It didn’t take into account the drastic changes these alphas must have undergone - physically and mentally - since they were bitten, but he could deal with that later. 

He texted Scott the second day and asked for a detailed account of the booby traps the alphas had used and then looked them up on his computer. He filled out the notebook with step by step instructions, drawing diagrams into his book, listing tips and advice; easier, more mundane ways to assemble the booby traps. 

He broke out the wolfsbane and got to work. He spent three days locked in his room. When Derek came to his window, he didn’t unlock it. Never again would anyone sneak into his room without his permission. Never again would anyone ever compromise his own sense of safety. Never again would he ever feel that helpless. Derek probably could have gone to the front door, and his dad would have let him in, but Derek didn’t.

And on the fourth day, he went to Derek’s. He tossed his notebook down onto a table that was missing a leg. Derek had stacked a bunch of books beneath it, to act as its surrogate leg. “This is what we’re going to do,” he said and it came out a little scratchier than he had predicted it might have. His throat hurt.

They were all looking at him. Standing there and staring. Scott’s lips had already started to quirk up into a full out grin. “Yes,” Scott said. He punched Derek’s arm, and hugged Stiles - hard - and shouted, “Yes!”

Stiles couldn’t help but smile too. Derek crossed his arms over his chest. Isaac punched Stiles in the arm while simultaneously high-fiving Scott. “You haven’t even heard my plan,” Stiles said over their shouting. 

Scott sobered reluctantly. “Oh yeah. Your plans do usually involve a complicated mixture of stupidity and suicidal tendencies. And they usually fail.”

“Ha. Ha. Shut up,” Stiles said dryly. He rubbed a hand back over his head. “I can take my shit and go back to my room dude.” He gathered up his notebook as if that was exactly what he intended to do.

Scott caught his arm. “No, no,” he said quickly. “Just tell us your plan.”

Stiles’s gaze grazed over the room. He had all of their attention. He stopped abruptly on Jackson. Jackson had been there the entire time, but he was hanging back, behind them. There were three red lines across his throat - the skin around them healed, but the lines reluctant to do so. They were a shining beacon of exactly what this entire effort might cost them. These were werewolves that could cut them - cut them so deep, they wouldn’t be able to heal fast enough. The mark on Jackson’s face, from just beneath his eye to his chin, was in the same stages of healing as the lines on his neck. It had been a week and a half, and Jackson still hadn’t healed. Stiles’s face hardened, his resolve solidifying.

His eyes settled on Derek, waiting. Derek gave a slight, imperceptible nod of permission and Stiles flipped open his notebook. “Okay. This is what we’re going to do.”


	6. Inertia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let us learn our lessons. … Never believe any war will be smooth and easy or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events… incompetent or arrogant commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant fortune, ugly surprise, awful miscalculations.
> 
> \- Winston Churchill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so much longer than the other chapters. I lost internet for about a week. And then i fucked up my computer and had to erase my entire hard drive just to fix it. Which is very craptastic. However, before all that fuckery, I uploaded this chapter and the next one to google docs so my beta could beta them. With all my music and pictures that I lost on my hard drive, however, I lost the massive battle chapter that will crop up in chapter nine. So I have to rewrite that. 
> 
> Annnd on top of that, I've been super duper sick for the last three days, so my writing might be a bit splotchy. Hopefully by the time I post the next chapter (which is beta'd, I just have to reread and revise it and take the Beta notes into consideration) I'll be over that shit though, and will have gotten some writing done. Thank you for your patience though, I hope you enjoy the chapter.

Stiles went to therapy. He didn’t talk there. At first, he didn’t talk to his father either, but that wall was forcibly torn down when he woke up one night and saw his father sitting in his computer chair. He couldn’t see it in the dark but he heard it. The hitches in his father’s breathing. The sobs. The exhausted hunch of his shoulders. The next day, over dinner, he told his father about his day at school. Every single aspect, every single thing that had happened, even the trivial parts, and he pretended to not notice the surprised smile. 

He talked at school too. Gradually, he collapsed back into that mask, that persona. The loud, funny one. The one who joked and deflected and didn’t really say anything of substance. He clung to the mask and wore it like a shield. But he talked the most at Derek’s. Encaged by the running water - to drown out super hearing - whispering in low, calm voices, he talked. It was a back and forth between him and Derek, because Derek wanted to know everything. Every single aspect. He interjected his own thoughts, what he thought would work better, and Stiles scrawled in his notebook, adjusting their plan. He added facts he got from Argent throughout the week as they came in.

He slept. He woke up screaming. He didn’t talk about it. It became a routine. Scott’s earlier enthusiasm at having his stone back began to wear off when it became apparent his stone wasn’t really back. Stiles wasn’t really the same. He hesitated before joke. He kept his thoughts and ideas to himself, even from Scott - unless they were at the Hale house. Unless the water was running.

And there was something else there too. When Harris made a remark on Stiles’s intelligence, Stiles didn’t care - he didn’t give pause before firing back a response. There was no sucking it up anymore. Stiles quickly became the most disruptive student in chemistry. He had straight As and he had detention every single day.

It didn’t feel like he was healing fast enough, either. It hurt to move. It hurt to lay still. It hurt to sit in a stupid chair in front of Harris for two hours. Two weeks after his release, his father dragged him to the gun range and put a gun in his hand, but the kick of the gun sent a shockwave through his entire body; so hard, he cried. His father seemed hesitant after that, when Stiles insisted on going back to the gun range again. He went back over and over again, until he could swallow his pain and his tears and shoot straight without going to his knees in pain. That was when he started buying wolfs bane bullets from Argent.

He also knew his father wasn’t completely buying the cover story for his attack. Since he wasn’t really talking at the time, Scott came up with the story. A senseless mugging. It sounded fine. Except if Stiles had came up with the story - he would have told Scott just how very low the mugging statistics were and how improbable such an attack truly would be. Especially since the wallet they recovered from him at the hospital still had money in it. But it was the story Scott pitched, so he was stuck with it. His father clearly thought there had been some kind of an attack though, because the shooting range became routine.

One night after dinner, Stiles asked his father if he would teach him how to fight. Real fight. The stuff he had to have learned when he went to cop academy or whatever. His father refused. Not in Stiles’s current state. The boy could barely walk up the stairs without having to pause at the top to catch his breathe and cringe in pain. Later, his father promised, when he healed.

Stiles did his research. That’s what he did - right? He knew it would take months for the wound to heal - for his skin to knit itself back together. It could take years for the inside of his stomach to fully heal. It could take years for the pain to completely go away - for the scar tissue to stop aching every time he moved too quickly. It could take an entire lifetime. This pain might be stuck with him forever. It wouldn’t be soon enough. He needed to know how to fight now - how to defend himself now. Jesus. He should’ve done this in the very beginning.

\----

“Are you sure this will work?” Scott asked. He hovered over Stiles, from Stiles was squatted down in the Hale house. He had taken to referring to Derek’s house as the Hell house, actually, but never to his face. 

“Of course I’m sure,” Stiles said dismissively. Then he reconsidered it. “Okay. Well, no. I’m not entirely sure. You can never be too sure. Einstein said something like that. Harris says it every detention. Dude has got a major hardon for Einstein and it ain’t pretty.” He shook his head.

“Okay,” Stiles said and blew out a breath. “Do you see what this is?”

Scott shook his head, clearly not expecting a pop quiz. “It’s an axe,” he said - and still somehow managed to turn that statement into a question.

“Right. It’s a weapon. Good eye, Scott. Now the art of booby traps is that you take objects people are more prone to picking up and you booby trap them. It’s all about being able to predict natural human behavior. We have ascertained that the alphas are actually hunters. They rely predominantly on weapons - probably because they want to either mock other hunters, or because they’re too stubborn to let it go. In a fight, you run out of ammo. So if you’re fighting in a house and you run out of ammo, what’s the first thing you do?”

“Look for ammo,” Scott said, quicker this time.

Stiles nodded, grinning at Scott. “Exactly. Now are you gonna pick up debris - sticks, boxes - the fucking couch, yeah I suppose that would work… - or are you going to pick up the closest blade you see? An axe. Something that’s sharp, that can sever limbs?”

“The axe,” Scott answered, but Stiles’s questions had already turned rhetorical.

“Exactly, the axe. Now see the axe isn’t actually rigged. You can use it just fine. But there’s a catch. I rigged the floorboard under it. If you pick it up, the removed weight triggers it.”

“A bomb?” Scott asked uncertainly. His hands were on his knees, and he was hunched over Stiles, but he perked up all the same. He was still in his lacrosse uniform. A few members of the team had already jump started their summer lacrosse camp practices, but Stiles could never really go, because he always had detention with Harris. And he was benched anyway. Running made him want to puke. It made him paranoid. More paranoid than usual, at least. He had to pick out the quickest exit every time he entered a room; he had to carry wolfsbane on him; he had to keep his head down and try to make himself invisible because if he got cornered, he was dead. there was no more running to safety.

Stiles laughed, grinning at Scott. “No, I already thought of that. It’s not a bomb. It’s an alarm.” He hit Scott’s chest enthusiastically. “Do you even know what booby traps were originally created for? Alarms. In the war. They were meant to make these loud noises that immediately gave away the position of the enemy. So you can find and kill them faster, because stealth is everything. Somebody goes for the axe - the alarm goes off. But - But - wait. We also have some goo left over from when Jackson was the Kanima and I totally covered the handle in it. So not only do you know their position - but they have the unfortunate pleasure of being paralyzed for an hour.” Stiles wasn’t even trying to restrain his proud grin now.

Scott reflected that grin easily. “That’s actually - that’s really genius.”

“I know, right?” Stiles chirped enthusiastically. He rose to his feet and peeled off his gloves. “I came up with it in detention. So don’t touch the axe.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Scott said pointedly.

Stiles discarded his gloves in a wastebasket and clapped Scott on the back. “Wanna see what I did to the walls? Or upstairs - I’ve been experimenting with different kinds of hallucinogens. Fact - we know wolfsbane’s like Kryptonite, different kinds do different things and one kind makes you hallucinate.”

“You’re really enjoying this way more than you should, you know that, right?” Scott asked skeptically.

Stiles shrugged, feeling the developing scar tissue tug unpleasantly on his stomach. “Who dictates what we enjoy? I do, however, feel that when the fighting starts, we should have a battle cry. Like, ‘For the shire.’”

“Or, ‘Avengers Assemble,” Isaac added, entering the room. Isaac was lean and tall. He was wearing his lacrosse uniform too. Whereas the uniform fitted Boyd and Scott better, it looked big on Isaac, and it wasn’t because he was a small kid. It was because he didn’t gain the upper body muscles like Derek and Scott. He stayed lean. He still hunched at the shoulders, never really standing up to his full height, too used to cowering. But he was wearing a grin that lit up his whole face.

“Or, Leeeeeroy Jennnnnkins,” Stiles continued, turning his own grin upon Isaac. Things hadn’t exactly been smooth between him and Isaac, since the Kanima issue had wrapped - or hell, before the Kanima issue had wrapped. Isaac had been a dick, and tried to kill Lydia just because Derek told him to. Sure, Stiles liked Lydia but there was also the fact that Lydia had been innocent, and a survivor of a traumatic event that everybody seemed intent on ignoring.There was also the fact that Isaac had shoved Stiles to the ground so hard that his shoulders had bruised almost as badly as his ego. Isaac, and by extension Erica, had primarily only served to remind Stiles how very human he was. Yeah. Stiles wasn’t much for forgiving and forgetting but at this moment, they were all in this together and a bit of that residual tension had lifted.

Scott thrust his fist in the air and joined in. “For Freeeedom!”

They dissolved into misplaced laughter that really hurt Stiles’s gut but it made his chest feel lighter. “Don’t touch the axe, by the way,” he told Isaac once they’d sobered.

“What axe?” Isaac asked, frowning. The frown was more like an attribute. It wasn’t something Stiles noticed - it was more like, he noticed when the frown was missing.

“That axe you threw into the woods. I found it in a tree. Also found a hand - that’s fun. Downright nightmare inducing. Nice shot, though - it was completely dark out, dude, and there was an arrow and you could’ve probably just dodged it…It was a nice shot.” If Isaac blushed, Stiles pretended he didn’t notice it. Jesus. Did this guy never receive compliments? Ever? “So I took it and booby trapped it, naturally, so don’t touch it.”

“Got it,” Isaac agreed. “What else are you booby trapping?”

“Everything,” Stiles said with a devilish grin. “As I see it - this house is our Gettysburg. It’s Alpha hill. If we lose it, we lose the war.”

“Oh god,” Scott groaned, gearing up for another one of Stiles’s speeches. He did this. Or he used - before all the werewolf crap. He used to give pump up speeches before everything. Even video games.

Stiles ignored him. “And they will come for us. With their weapons, and their claws, and when they cut us - do we not bleed? And when they come, Grasshopper, what shall we say? Not today. That’s what we shall say. Not today. Aye?”

Isaac cocked an eyebrow and said “Aye?” uncertainly.

“Aye,” Stiles agreed enthusiastically, thrusting his fist in the air. “So we batten down our hatches. We stand our ground. We use our own weapons, our own claws. And we eviscerate them. Aye?”

“Aye,” Isaac said, less uncertain this time.

Scott rubbed a hand over his face. “Okay, Stiles, we got pract-”

Stiles tilted his head slightly. “Don’t fight for your kind and don’t fight for your kingdoms. Don’t fight for honor, don’t fight for glory, don’t fight for riches, because you won’t get any. This is your city - Stannis - er, the Alphas - mean to sack. That’s your gate he’s ramming. If he gets in, it’ll be your houses he burns, your gold he steals, your women he’ll rape. Those are brave men knocking at our door. Let’s go kill them!”

“That’s a pretty good one,” Scott said in retrospect, defeated. He clapped. “Good pump up speech. Kinda weird that you memorized an entire speech from a show though…”

Stiles grinned. “You haven’t even heard my west wing speech yet.” He clapped Isaac on the shoulder. “Wanna learn how to make a bomb?”

Isaac leveled Stiles with a look. “The sheriff’s kid - the sheriff who threw me in jail - just invited me to partake in an illegal activity. Everything’s illegal with you - you’re a horrible influence - aren’t you?”

Stiles grinned and shrugged. “No but seriously, you want to, don’t you? We’re going to make history, Isaac. I’m going to school you all, and we’re going to be prepared for once - for once in our freaking lives - we’re going to have the upper hand. Now what we’re going to do is plant bombs in the forest. You know how they used to have catapults and shit that would just plow right through the competition? That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to connect them all through a trigger. Strings that run back to us - on Alpha Hill. And take them all down, one by one, when they get too close to our bombs. Homemade catapults, but underfoot. And we can control the blast. Do we want to damage their feet - without feet they’re not doing shit - or do we want to blow them apart?”

Isaac nodded, staring at Stiles intently. “It’s extremely creepy, that you’re still smiling.”

“I haven’t even gotten to the Molotov cocktails yet,” Stiles said. He really did sound enthusiastic. But this was something he could do. This was something Derek was letting him do. He felt sure of this. Like maybe - for the first time - the odds weren’t so pathetically stacked against them. 

“No, I have this all planned out. We got Molotov cocktails, wolfs bane bullets, trip wires - I even know how to shoot a gun now - and mountain ash. Plus I have a little bit of the kanima’s venom left. What if I could douse a few bullets in it. The wolfs bane will keep them from healing, the venom will knock them off the board entirely. And they’ll just be there, sitting ducks. It’ll make it easier to take them down one by one while attacking them all head on at the same time. That’s a good plan.” Stiles squeezed Isaac’s shoulder, as if Isaac had actually helped with it.

They planted bombs. and Stiles explained everything to Isaac. Isaac listened to him. There were no pop quizzes, or trick questions but Isaac listened. Then Boyd, Jackson, Isaac and Scott left to go to their after school practice, and Derek practically had to drag Stiles out of his house just to get the boy to go home.

So he went home. 

He turned on the Goonies and sprawled across the couch. Even in quieter moments, watching a movie, doing home work, Stiles couldn’t focus. He couldn’t loosen the vice like grip around his heart. 

He finally dragged himself off of the couch to eat dinner with his father. His father was working a double shift. It set Stiles on edge, but his father still made time to eat dinner with him before disappearing out of the door again. His father squeezed his shoulder, rubbed a hand over his head and murmured, “Get some sleep, Kiddo, I’ll be back in the morning,” before leaving. 

Once his father had left, it felt like the house was closing in around him, suddenly small, suddenly toxic. Stiles was halfway up the stairs, hand pressed to his stomach, breathing hard, when there was a knock at the door. He froze. It was a stupid, irrational reaction but he stayed there for a moment. He stayed there until he stopped trembling, until goosebumps broke out across his arms. Then he turned around and went back down the stairs.

He opened the door and stopped again, because Lydia was right there. She looked uncomfortable, but it wasn’t like the last time. She wasn’t crying. She shifted uncomfortably before brushing past him and into his house. “Uh okay,” he muttered and closed the door. “What’s up?”

This wasn’t like a tv show. They weren’t magically friends just because he accidentally confessed his love for her. They hadn’t talked a lot since she’d come to him for help with Jackson. It was probably his fault, to be honest. He hadn’t really talked to many people. 

“I want you to tell me what’s going on,” Lydia said. 

“About what?” Stiles asked. He switched off the TV.

Lydia scoffed. “Don’t play stupid with me Stiles. I know something’s up, just tell me what it is. For once - can someone just tell me what it is. Do you think you’re protecting people by keeping things from them? You’re not. You’re abandoning them to their own ignorance. It’s selfish and frustrating. Tell me what’s going on. Now.”

Stiles was quiet for a moment. What he’d told Scott about his fifteen year plan had been a lie. He knew - with crushing defeat and overwhelming apathy - Lydia loved Jackson. This… it never had a chance. He knew that in the beginning - and then they’d gone to the formal and he thought that just… just maybe he had a chance, but it was evident now that he didn’t. It was okay. He’d made peace with it.

“Okay,” he said, because she was right. They’d neglected telling her anything, even after Peter had attacked her. And she’d turned around and helped resurrect him simply because she had no idea what was going on. They should’ve told her sooner. “There’s a pack of Alphas in town and we’re going to kill them.”

“And that’s all?” Lydia asked, her tone clipped. She crossed her arms over her chest. “There’s nothing else?”

Stiles sighed. “What do you want me to tell you, Lydia?”

“Everything you know,” Lydia said automatically. “I want to know everything - you know that.”

Stiles rubbed a hand over his head. Derek was going to kill him for even thinking about cluing Lydia in, but he knew it was a lost cause the second she knocked on his door. He would tell her anything. He sighed again. “Well c’mon, then, little Grasshopper.” He turned back toward the stairs, toward his room. “We got some things to learn you.”


	7. Infinite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hope proves man deathless. It is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.
> 
> \- Henry Melville

[ ](http://s206.photobucket.com/albums/bb197/robinraeburne/Random/?action=view&current=bannerfinal.jpg)

Stiles took Lydia to his bedroom. He showed her his notebook. It was a mess. It was unorganized, just like his mind. It was full, page after page of his messy scrawl. He scribbled into the margins of nearly every page as thoughts occurred to him. Things were crossed out as he ruled them out; new things were added. In this notebook, he had no shame in admitting his own ignorance. There were question after question, theories, assumptions. At certain points he flat out admitted he had no idea about certain things. 

But there were also concrete facts too. This was his own bestiary - and a lot of what he had, he had gotten from the Argent’s bestiary. Some he’d gotten from The Hale family bestiary. Good portions of the writing in the notebook didn’t have anything to do with werewolves at all, but he didn’t care. It was information, and he had it.

Lydia read it in silent but rapt focus, sitting on her bed. She paused on a chart he’d made in the middle of the book. It laid out where everybody stood. A second one laid out the Alphas, but despite this war, there wasn’t really a whole lot to go on. Beneath the chart was a tree of facts he knew; facts he’d already told Derek. The fact that they were hunters and theories on how best to defeat them. Because defeat was a better word than kill. 

“Stiles… this is…” Lydia seemed at a loss for words, as she turned another page. 

“Unorganized? I know,” Stiles agreed. “But that’s how I take notes, I guess, I mean it helps if you have all the information already laid out in front of you - I mean, in class my notes are way better, I think. But this has been a year in the making, I mean a lot of the stuff… I just need one place to have it all - I think better with the information in front of me and I know it’s crap quality but -”

“Amazing,” Lydia interrupted. Stiles fell silent, dumbfounded. Surely he’d misheard her. He’d seen her notes. They were thorough and neat and organized. “You date marked everything,” she said, awestruck. Stiles blinked at her, confused. Maybe he’d imagined her voice too. “You drew a graph of the time line. All the mountain lion murders, all the Kanima murders, all the new murders by the Alpha pack. The Hale house fire - you have copies of police records. You… it’s so thorough - you have facts that… I… This is amazing.”

“Uh…” Stiles swallowed hard, standing awkwardly by his computer chair. He was suddenly uncomfortable, suddenly nervous. He’d expected her to chastise him, and demand he just tell her what she wanted to know, because his notes made no fucking sense, and they looked like a ten year old had written them. She hadn’t. Even though Derek hadn’t insulted his notebook - he’d expected Lydia to. Her standards were so unbearably high, he‘d expected to fall short of them.

“Thank…you?”

Lydia smiled, sparing him a glance before returning her gaze to the notebook. “Booby traps?” She asked, looking up again, this time longer.

“Uh yeah,” Stiles said quickly, grateful to have something to say. “Well that’s how hunters hunt, I guess. I mean, Mr. Argent explained it and so did Derek - they said it’s because hunters are human and need that added advantage. Stealth is y’know - numero uno on the list of necessary advantages. So these… uh these Alphas - that’s what they do too. They dug this pit into the forest and it’s actually really kinda clever,” he said, moving forward and sitting down on the bed beside her. “They shot Isaac with an arrow, using the speed and force of the arrow to drive him back into the pit, and then they used the gravity of the fall to drive him down onto a stake. They fight like humans, like they need those advantages, when they obviously don’t. So I thought it would be clever - er, I mean, funny, really - if we did the same thing. Use hunter methods against them. Except… well uh… a lot of its actually kind of impromptu - I mean we don’t have any hunters helping us. Allison’s kinda…” He looked away, unsure where he was going with this. He didn’t want to talk about Allison.

“She really tried to kill them?” Lydia asked, quieter. “The pack? Jackson? Everybody?”

Stiles shrugged. “A lot of things have happened, Lydia,” he said, just as quiet. “Around you. We should’ve told you sooner. It was unfair keeping you out of the loop, especially after Peter. We thought we were protecting you, like you could go back to your normal life, without having that stupid weight of all this bullshit suffocating you, but…” He shook his head and ran a hand over his hair, digging his nail briefly into his scalp. “Peter’s just….” He let out a long breath. “Smart. He played us, I should’ve known he had a plan. I mean if he really wanted to get to Scott - to me - why would he attack you, and not me? I mean I have a very - a pathetically low pain threshold…” And he knew Stiles would’ve done anything to protect Scott. He’d said as much. The attack on Lydia had to have been a personal reason, a personal gain. Stiles wasn’t supposed to be on the field.

“And you think he still has a plan?” She asked. It sounded like her voice was growing quieter, but she was looking at him now.

“Derek told me what Deaton said. Deaton - he’s the vet in town. He’s been saving our asses for a while now. I don’t know what his gain is but he’s a good guy right now.” He laughed quietly, but it wasn’t a very humorous laugh. “I don’t know how long that’s going to last, everything keeps changing. But he said that Gerard Argent had a plan. And that plan was going exactly as he wanted it to - except… they were standing in the Hale house and it was after you resurrected Peter, and they were looking at the hole in the ground. Gerard isn’t out of this game, and neither is Peter. If anybody has a plan - ever - it’s Peter Hale.”

Stiles stood up again, pacing a little. He rubbed his hands over his head agitatedly. “I mean he attacked you at the Formal. And he used it to get me to help him. With Derek, with something that had nothing to do with you. But I think that’s what did it. He bit you and somehow established an extremely strong link with you - which I have no fucking clue, Lydia, I don’t know, maybe I should ask Derek. But whatever, he established a link. And I don’t know if it’s something in his bite, or if it’s because you’re immune or what -”

“Immune,” Lydia echoed. “That’s what your notes say about me too. What’s it mean?”

“When you get bitten by a werewolf,” Stiles said, “you either turn - or your body rejects the bite and you die. There’s no in between. You turn or you die. You didn’t turn, Lydia. And you didn’t die. And you remember that chemistry class where we made crystallized candy, and you ate it? Isaac put the Kanima’s venom on it. The venom paralyzes - it paralyzes everybody, even Jackson. But it didn’t paralyze you. Immune means there’s something off about you. The supernatural world might not have any effect on you at all. And I’m not - I have no fucking clue why that is. Is it a mutation in your genes? Does everybody in your family have that mutation or is it because you’re already a certain flavor of supernatural? Dunno, dude. No fucking clue.”

Lydia went back to flipping through his book, soaking it in. “Look,” Stiles started again. “I’m really sorry about keeping you in the dark and -”

Lydia waved it off impatiently. “We’re over that, Stiles, try to keep up,” she chastised, and he couldn’t help the flash of smile that lit up his whole face. “His plan. What do you think it is? You have your theories, I know you do. So what are they?”

The smile didn’t waver from Stiles’s face, because Lydia was actually asking him questions and he was actually making sense and it wasn’t half as awkward anymore. “He wants to be alpha again, obviously. I assume he isn’t alpha right now, but that’s just an assumption. I mean… we’re in this world that isn’t the real world anymore. What we knew before all of this shit, it no longer applies. Agreed?”

Lydia considered that for a moment. “Agreed.”

“Okay, so when you become Alpha, you have to - presumably - kill an alpha. They die. You get their power. Which means you absorb something from them. A metaphysical force. Something. Derek absorbed that from Peter. Peter can’t have come back as an alpha because -”

“Right - it’s the same reasoning that goes with Matter. You can neither create nor destroy matter. If Derek possesses that metaphysical force, Peter can’t introduce a new metaphysical force into this reality. He has to have come back as a normal werewolf.”

“Exactly,” Stiles chirped enthusiastically. “Exactly, that’s my theory. Which - by the way - is also why I find time travel hard to believe. If you’re going to travel into the past, you’re going to not only take matter from this reality, but also add matter to a past reality. Time as we know it would collapse around that lost matter. It would be the end of life as we know it.”

He nodded and Lydia smiled at him, amused. These weren’t like their normal conversations. Stiles wasn’t telling her she was beautiful, he wasn’t promising to discuss her feelings, and she wasn’t humoring him. It felt more real than that. “True,” she agreed. “But what about wormholes and black holes? Where time as we perceive it literally warps.”

“Wormholes have not been proven,” Stiles said, voice rising.

Lydia scoffed. “Oh they have too. It’s an all but proven theory, okay? And what about black holes? It’s impossible to know what truly happens inside of them, except that the density is so extreme, it’ll crush anything that enters it. But what if it’s revolving and -”

“Bullshit,” Stiles interrupted. “We have literally no way of knowing a revolving blackhole is even possible.”

Lydia looked personally offended. “Stiles,” she chided. “We have enough proof. You said it yourself. We are currently living in a reality that doesn’t have the same rules our last reality did. So how do we know that those rules ever truly existed? Werewolves exist and you really think wormholes might not? Don’t be stupid.”

Okay. She had a point. Damnit. Stiles swore, and Lydia beamed at him. It was the smile of the victor; gloating and charming and he wanted to kiss it. God, he wanted to kiss it.

Lydia cleared her throat. “Anyway. Becoming an alpha again is a given; that’s not a plan.”

“Right. But I think… I think he knew Gerard would kill Derek as soon as he got the bite. He would kill Derek, get Alpha and then Peter would kill Gerard. I think that might have -”

“Why not cut out the middle man?” Lydia interrupted. “Why not kill Derek himself?”

Stiles shook his head. “Maybe… Maybe he needed Derek to cure Jackson?”

“Is that a question or a hypothesis?” Lydia fired back. Abruptly, it felt like Stiles was suddenly the student here.

“Hypothesis makes it sound like we’re going to test it out… there’s no way of testing it,” Stiles said, frowning.

Lydia tapped a finger on her chin. “True,” she said. “I think the better question is why does he want Jackson so badly that he would wait?”

Stiles straightened up slightly, tensing. “What if he knew the Alpha pack was here. I mean, Isaac said that Peter is the one that backed Derek into telling him in the first place. So what if this entire time - what if maybe - I mean, when Derek killed Peter, he did it because he knew the Alpha pack was on their way - so what if Peter knew too. What if he knew before Derek ever killed him. No… that makes no sense, he would’ve been building a pack instead of killing people…”

Lydia shrugged. “Vengeance waits for nothing. And maybe he was being smarter about it. Four baby werewolves can’t be much help…”

Stiles nodded. “Good point, actually. So what if he knew about the Alpha pack and he’s just waiting for them to pick Derek off? And if Gerard had killed him, maybe he’d just wait… No, that‘s stupid, ignore that.”

Lydia smiled despite herself. “What if he’s waiting for Derek to do all the hard work for him? Maybe he doesn’t expect Derek to lose? Maybe he’s waiting for Derek to kill the Alpha pack so that he doesn’t have to?”

Stiles’s head perked up. “That’s genius. We should go with that.” They shared a smile. 

Lydia held out her hand. “Give me a pen, we should write this down.” Stiles retrieved a pen and handed it to her, and stayed there for a moment, watching her. Lydia bent over the book, her eyebrows screwed up in concentration as she wrote in his notebook. Her penmanship differed from his greatly. It was loopy and clean and precise; big compared to his tiny scrawl; neat compared to his sloppy scratches. But her strawberry blonde head was bowed, and her tongue poked out slightly between her glossed lips, and she was in complete concentration, and she looked absolutely beautiful. In this moment. 

The weight on his chest felt lighter, he realized. He could breathe easier, because Lydia - Lydia, more than anyone else - was on the same page as he was. She could - jesus, he realized abruptly, she could keep up with him. She could race out ahead of him, dragging him along behind her, with her hand clasped in his. She could carry him - this. She could help. Finally. She could help him think. She was here, and he couldn’t remember why they’d never done this before. How useful and helpful she would’ve been. 

They stayed like that for a while. Stiles rolled his computer chair up to the bed and propped his feet up on the corner of his bed, and at some point, Lydia laid back across his bed. And they were simply there, shooting ideas and theories and facts back and forth. More than once they got sidetracked with a startlingly abrupt political argument; at points they argued over scientific facts. Lydia was smarter than him with science and math, but Stiles was smarter than her with history and literature - which fucking blew his mind. He told her all about where he derived his booby traps ideas, what wars he took them from, historical facts about them. He told her about something he’d cooked up with wolfs bane and mountain ash, which he referred to as the Fear toxin and how he’d gotten the idea from the Scarecrow in Batman, but how it had truly been Lydia who had turned him onto it. Wolfsbane that made you hallucinate.

She told him about her dreams with Peter. About her hallucinations and he couldn’t believe he’d never noticed it before. She told him everything Peter had texted her so far. He told her everything the Argents had done. Even Gerard, but he masked that with bitterness and a pretty shitty attempt at dismissal. She put together the pieces anyway - that his face… that had been Gerard’s message to Scott, back when all she’d cared about was saving Jackson. Lydia reached her hand across the bed and taken his, and squeezed it. She told him that he’s not the only human anymore. Then she went on to reassure him that they’re not liabilities. That this is a chess game, and it’s not them who are the pawns.

They talked for hours. Lydia scribbled into his notebook off and on, but mostly it was just talking and it was easier than anything he’d ever done before. They talked until they were tired and their voices began to drag slightly and their subjects got more random and unconnected. 

Lydia fell asleep on his bed, and some time around four in the morning, Stiles finally dragged himself out of his chair and pulled his blanket up over Lydia. He took the notebook and pen and slid them under the bed. Then he switched off the light and slowly wandered downstairs. He fell asleep on the couch, with the second Lord of the Rings playing softly on the TV. His father coming home at six in the morning woke him up, and he was so sleepy and out of it that he actually said ‘Lydia’s ‘sleep in my bed’ when his father tried to coax him off the couch and to his bed.

His father laughed quietly and muttered, “if you’re doing sex, kiddo, you’re doing it wrong.”

“Don’t wake her,” Stiles yawned after his father, as the man wandered in the vague direction of the stairs, to bed. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” came his father’s voice, but the man was already up the stairs. Stiles smiled faintly, and curled up on the couch, pulling sleep back over him like a blanket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter I have queried up, so the next update might not occur until next week. I usually don't like posting a chapter until I have a few written, but since I spent two weeks AWOL, I figured I owed you guys a few timely updates. The good news, however, is that I do have the rest of the fic plotted. I know where I want to go with the next chapter, I've made some mental revisions to the battle sequence and I know how I intend to end it.
> 
> I also know there will be a sequel, so stick with me folks.


	8. Reinforcement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Any soldier will tell you, if he tells the truth, that proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life. After a firefight, there is always the immense pleasure of aliveness. The trees are alive. the grass, the soil — everything. All around you things are purely living, and you among them, and the aliveness makes you tremble.
> 
> \- Tim O'brien

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the longer than usual wait. This was originally longer, seven thousand words, but I decided to break it apart into two chapters, so you get a cliffhanger and a shorter wait for the next chapter.

Summer washed over them like a tidal wave. Suddenly Stiles had too much time on his hands. His father worked a night shift that more often than not turned into a morning shift. Stiles tried to ignore the sneaking suspicion that it was probably because most of the murders occurred at night. And the full moon. Jesus. It was like they weren’t even trying to control themselves.

Stiles signed up for summer classes, knowing that the overwhelming sense of time he had on his hands was an illusion and he wouldn’t have enough time for school, but he needed to make up his GPA after Harris gave him a D for chemistry. He knew what the man was doing, he knew he didn’t miss any of the questions on his final. He’d fucking studied.

He lingered around the house until his father left for the night, every day. He didn’t want to worry his father by being gone all day, but even that thought made him uncertain. They had lied to Lydia and look how that’d ended… Stiles was doing the same thing to his father, even after Lydia’s speech about how being forewarned is forearmed. If his father was ever attacked, he would be using the wrong bullets because he’d have no freaking clue exactly what he was up against. It was wrong and selfish and yet Stiles found himself doing it anyway.

The first time he encountered an out of town hunter, he was walking out of walmart, several bags of junk food dangling from his fingers, a Monster Energy Drink already open and halfway to his lips. The only reason he noticed them at all was because in the midst of them was Chris Argent. Stiles locked eyes with Chris just long enough to know that Chris saw and recognized him. As he should. Stiles had been badgering him every week since he got stabbed. Chris refused to let him make house calls. The bullets Stiles got were always mailed. Now he understood why. What would it look like if he was always around both Derek and a hunter?

It had been nearly two months which sounded outrageous so he tried not to think about it. Two months meant a lot of things. It meant that he should have healed by now, that he should have moved on by now. That the nightmares should have stopped by now. That the alphas should be dead by now. It meant time was moving too fast and everything else was moving too slow.

“That’s the kid,” he heard one of them say to Argent as he brought the energy drink to his lips and took a swift chug and moved past them, eyes focused ahead and blank. “The one always hanging around the Hale place.”

Stiles shoved his bags into the passenger seat and climbed into his jeep. If Argent was going to use him against Derek, he would have done that already. If Argent wanted to use him against Scott, he’d had his chance. Stiles just hoped Argent had let those chances pass intentionally. He hoped Argent didn’t want to do any of that. He hoped just this once, somebody could be honorable about this and stick to their goddamn code. He started up his jeep and left before he could talk himself out of it, before he could give into the curiosity and panic eating at him, and try to eavesdrop. It didn’t matter. Their fight wasn’t with the hunters. It was with the Alphas, and that was all the fight they could handle right now, Stiles told himself, knowing full well he was going to find time to map out a plan incase the hunters did attack them.

\-----

“You’re doing this all wrong.”

Stiles glanced up from the station of chemicals he’d set up on Derek’s crappy coffee table. He had his notebook flipped open to a page full of equations that Lydia had scribbled down into the book a few days ago. She had taken the time to explain them to him three times too, before he finally got it. He had his own notes crammed into the page around hers. Most of them were chemicals and herbs he thought would be cool for this mission, but hadn't had enough time to test them on real werewolves. Well, werewolves he didn't mind killing. Hemlock was heavy among them. It was the herb they'd used to execute Socrates, he had explained enthusiastically to Isaac. You lose sensation in your body, bit by bit, until you're cold and rigid and incapable of talking, only then does it reach your heart and you die.

It wasn’t the first time Lydia stopped him to tell him he was adding too much sulfur, so he assumed she was talking to him.

She wasn’t talking to him, and she wasn’t talking about the explosives he was mixing. She was talking to Derek, who had finally found his way home. Derek had been widely missing in action. Which was okay. Really, it was. His betas deferred to Stiles or Scott when Derek wasn’t there, and it made things easier. Stiles was almost entirely positive they didn’t even realize they were doing it.

Lydia had a hand on her cocked hip. Derek stopped, and stared at her. His stare was dangerous, but Lydia didn’t even look like she noticed it. “What.” Stiles stripped off his safety gloves, eyes fixed on the two of them in front of him.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Lydia repeated, helpfully. “Alphaing. You’re doing it wrong.”

If it was possible, Derek’s gaze grew even more dangerous, as he finally realized what she was talking about. Everyone in the room froze. “What,” Derek repeated. He was adding periods to questions that weren’t really questions.

“Where the hell have you been, Hale? I’ve been here all week, in this danky house of yours, and you’ve been AWOL. You’re the Alpha, you’re supposed to help.”

Stiles grimaced. Lydia didn’t actually care. She couldn’t actually care. Stiles waited, because there was a catch, a catch that made it abundantly clear Lyida was right, and the whole world was eternally wrong.

It wasn’t exactly like Derek had been gone the entire time, either. Some nights, he crawled in through Stiles’s window, and sat there while Stiles ran through his notes. Sometimes Stiles had questions for Derek, sometimes Derek had questions for Stiles, but mostly, it was just Stiles ranting, and it was Derek sitting there silently. Even after Stiles went out and got mountain ash and built himself a fucking magical circle, he still broke the circle so Derek could come up to his room, and then mended it once Derek was gone.

Derek’s gaze shifted to Stiles, pointed and angry. “Who invited her?” He asked Stiles. It wasn’t really a question either, because it was obvious. Derek knew who invited her. Everybody knew. And nobody really had a verbal problem with it. Erica’s remarks were more pointed, and Isaac was more quiet than usual, but nobody seemed too upset about it, and the more the week wore on, the more at ease everybody grew.

“Uh….” Stiles rose to his feet, fumbled his safety glasses and dropped them on the table. “Well, funny story actually - I can totally explain this.”

Lydia rolled her eyes and ignored Stiles. “What are you going to do when they attack you on a full moon and the only people here to help you are werewolves who can’t control themselves because you neglected to teach them?” She pressed, and Stiles winced. She was going for the jugular. This wasn’t going to be pretty.

“I can control myself,” Isaac said helpfully. He sat against a rotted wall beside Scott, who was doing everything in his power to focus on the booby trap he was assembling instead of Derek and Lydia.

“One time, sweetie?” Lydia asked. “Circumstances are everything. Sure - you can make the shot when nobody else is on the field, but what are you going to do when you’ve got defense charging at you?”

Isaac’s eyes narrowed and he looked toward Stiles now too, because how the hell did she know that?

“You don’t have to be such a raging bitch about it,” Erica muttered. Erica wasn’t helping. She sat on the stairs watching them. Earlier in the week, Stiles had offered to teach her to shoot a gun because he thought it would help if they were all armed and dangerous, but after she nearly shot Lydia, he decided maybe things wouldn’t be better if they were armed and dangerous.

“Yes I do,” Lydia snapped. “Because no matter how mean I am in here, they are going to be a thousand times more vicious out there and you need to be prepared. You’re not prepared - none of you are, and it will get you killed.”

The silence thickened and Stiles tripped over himself in his haste to cross the room to Derek and Lydia. “Okay! We can all just relax, I can totally explain this. It’s not what it looks like, okay -”

“She graced you with one look and you told her everything you know,” Derek deadpanned.

Stiles faltered. He liked to think it had been a bit more dignified than that. “Okay… it’s exactly what it looks like.” He deflated. “But she’s smart, okay? And she’s a part of this too. Peter thinks she’s useful - doesn’t that tell you something?”

Derek huffed, nostrils flaring. He ignored Lydia’s quiet ‘oh honey, that’s not attractive’ but with each passing minute, he looked more willing to murder someone. “I don’t trust Peter’s judgment.”

“Judgments are opinions,” Lydia said. “I don’t have judgments. I have facts. What you need to do is start training the people you do have in everything. We live in 2011, not 1850. The average teenager doesn’t know how to fight.”

Derek’s gaze returned to hers and he took a step closer. Stiles jerked forward, weaseling his way in between them - not an easy feat, since neither Lydia or Derek moved back. He wiggled his elbows and succeeded victoriously, but Derek didn’t look amused. Stiles put his hands on Derek’s chest defensively, to hold him at bay, and to Stiles’s utmost surprise, Derek actually paused. “I don’t need a human’s input on how to run my pack - let alone a human who single handedly resurrected Peter,” Derek snapped, raising his voice in what passed as a shout.

Stiles didn’t have to be a werewolf to feel the tension rolling off of Derek, or to know that behind him, Lydia didn’t even look a tiny bit sorry. Stiles lifted his hands - as if to remind Derek that they were still in the defensive position. “I know man,” he said quickly, and he did. He hadn’t told Derek once what he was doing wrong, because it wasn’t his place. This wasn’t his pack - it was Derek’s,and Derek had enough on his plate. It became more apparent with each passing day. So Stiles took what Derek gave him. He made the traps and the bombs and focused on the plan, and he let Derek focus on the pack.

“She didn’t mean it like that,” Stiles went on. “When Lydia Martin is mean, it’s because she cares.” He ignored her ‘hey!’ of indignation. Stiles took Derek by the elbow and led him away from Lydia. Or well - he tugged hard until Derek finally relented and let himself be led further away.

“Why is she really here?” Derek asked quieter now, in their fake sense of privacy, but his tone was still angry and unrelenting.

“Because she’s smart,” Stiles hissed back. “Because this fight involves the entire town and it’d be stupid to cut off the smartest person I know just because you don’t trust her.” His fingers tightened on Derek’s arm. “I trust her. I never would’ve brought her here if I didn’t. I wouldn’t let her help us if I didn’t.” His fingers dug into Derek’s arm, because Derek’s scowl hadn’t even wavered. “I wouldn’t have told her anything if I didn’t,” he pressed. “Trust me, alright? Just tune out all her bitchiness, and listen to everything she says. You don’t have to admit you’re listening - nobody will think any less of you, alright - Mr. Mcbroodyson? Just try to look at it objectively. If they do attack on a full moon, our werewolves, dude, they need to have it down. They need anchors, they need to know how to control the shift. They need to know how to fight, or they’re dead. We’re all dead. Focus on them, okay? I got everything covered on this front.”

Derek’s scowl wavered. It wasn’t obvious, but Stiles could see it. It softened slightly. “Fine,” he grunted, and it looked like Derek would rather spit out teeth than say that one word. “Keep an eye on her. I don’t trust her.”

Stiles flashed Derek a brilliant smile and clapped his shoulder with a hand. “Got it, buddy,” he agreed. “Keep an eye on Peter. I don’t trust him.”

Derek nodded once, swiftly, and then he made for the door. He paused there for a second, tossing a look back at the rest of the pack. They were still doing their best to focus on miniscule tasks. “Let’s go,” he barked, before leaving.

The pack scrambled to comply. It was hard to tell if it was Derek’s voice, or if they were just that eager to have a break from Lydia’s dictatorship. Stiles wandered back toward Lydia and nudged her with his elbow. “That could’ve gone way worse, I think.”

“He could’ve mauled me to death,” Lydia agreed.

\---

It’d been two months and despite the threat about keeping his mouth shut, Stiles hadn’t heard from the Alphas since. None of Derek’s pack had. The only evidence of their existence was the murders. Stiles assumed something big was going to happen - something big always happened - and it had to be the war, when they broke and finally attacked Derek. Why were they waiting? Until then, Derek’s pack never went anywhere alone. Stiles mixed wolfs bane, mountain ash and mace all together in handheld mace canisters and distributed them to the pack.

Isaac had smiled at Stiles, and said, “Are you asking me to go steady? Is this the equivalent of giving me your jacket?”

“What?” Stiles had asked, suddenly flustered.

“What?” Isaac echoed.

Stiles screwed up his face at the extremely unhelpful response and said, “No, I just don’t want you to die, dick, shut up,” and dropped it at that, but Isaac was still smiling, and it was a little worrisome.

Everybody was on edge. Everybody was as paranoid as Stiles had been the entire last two months, and it felt good, because it made him feel a little bit like he wasn’t entirely losing his mind.

The only place he felt safe was at his own house, and Derek’s. Lydia’s was a good place too - he’d made her a barrier too, but it was more about keeping Peter out than the Alphas. It didn’t matter. She was safe too, and that helped ease his nerves a little bit.

Stiles’s phone rang and he answered it. His father had already left for work and he was standing in front of the microwave in the kitchen, watching his hot pockets slowly revolve inside of the machine. “Yeah?” He asked into the phone. It was an unknown number, and he entertained the possibility that Derek broke Scott’s phone again. With werewolves, keeping track of their numbers was hard when they kept breaking their phones.

“Are you a hunter?”

Stiles froze. The entire world ground to a halt. He recognized the voice. He knew exactly who it was. He heard that voice every time he shut his eyes - and sometimes when he didn’t. “Nope,” he tried to go for casual and failed. “Why? Looking for new applicants?”

The woman on the other end laughed, low and sultry and Stiles glued his eyes back on his revolving plate. “I realize I might not have been clear enough the last time I spoke with you, Stiles.” He didn’t like how she said his name. She said it like she knew him. “I realize now that threatening you wasn’t the best tactic to use, even though I have no doubt the mountain ash around your house is to protect you more than your father.”

“Mountains don’t ash, silly goose,” Stiles said. He managed humor this time, but his eyes were hard and focused.

The woman laughed again. He didn’t like it, because it didn’t sound real. It didn’t just sound forced, it sounded forceful. “But you see, Stiles, your father doesn’t adhere to that strict circle of yours.” Stiles went so painfully still, every muscle rigid, at her implication. “No. Tonight he’s on I-80. A poor woman was found in a ditch. Mauled to death. Bears it looks like.”

“If you think you’re being clever making it look like animal attacks, you’re stupider than you look,” he said, but his own fear was spiking. “There’ve been twelve bear attacks in California since 1980. And suddenly in three months there’s double that?” Stiles scoffed derisively. “You’re about as subtle as an avalanche.”

The woman didn’t laugh this time. There was silence and Stiles realized he was pacing. “Did you really think Derek Hale was the only werewolf with humans on his side?” She asked slowly. Stiles’s head snapped up. Yes. Yes, he had. He’d assumed that much and it was such a stupid assumption. Even Peter Hale had employed humans. “Here’s a secret, Stiles. Ours are better. We’ll tell your father you said Hi. It’ll be the last words he ever hears.” The line went dead.

Stiles swore and spun around. He reeled back, choking, taking ash to the face. It stung his eyes and his vision blurred as he fell back against the counter. He knocked a few plates to the ground in his haste, and the sound of glass shattering against tile nearly drowned out the microwave’s beep. He scrubbed at his eyes. Through the fog of falling ash - _not ash,_ he realized - he barely had time to see the fist coming and twist to the side. It glanced off of his chin and Stiles ducked low to avoid the next blow. He drove his hand forward hard, heel first and hit the attacker in the chest. He felt bone under his palm, and then he lifted his hands and clapped them hard against the man’s head - over his ears.

The man reeled back and Stiles grinned. Pain. Good. He got that move from Tumblr. He rammed forward, catching the man around the waist and they both fell to the ground.

He had to get outside, he had to break the circle, to call someone.

_He had to get to his gun._


	9. Illusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.  
> \- Tennesse Williams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I'm sorry it's been so long. I figured I owed you guys an update for Christmas, so this is it. I do have a good chunk of the fic mapped out and written. I just have a few more scenes to write up and slot into place. So there should probably be no more unexpected hiatuses, and thanks for sticking in there for me, and I hope everyone enjoys this update.
> 
> I would also like to give special thank you to my beta, and the wonderful person who created that Intangibles banner, Mary Greenman.

Stiles tried to roll away, but the kitchen was small and the man managed to slam him against the counter. The kitchen was more like a hallway than an actual room. It connected the living room and dining room. There wasn’t enough room to fight. Stiles took a sloppy knee to his stomach and cried out in pain. The air punched out of him and he reeled, gasping, struggling to swallow both oxygen and pain. It didn’t fade. The pain settled low in his stomach, throbbing outward. He should’ve ran. He grappled blindly for something, anything and cut his hand on a shard of broken plate. He couldn’t feel it, even after his grip grew slick and he couldn’t get traction on the ground with his hands.

The man got Stiles under him, pressing a knee down into his stomach and punched him again. Stiles choked, trying to gasp but the man was heavy on top of him. He blinked back tears and everything blurred together. This man had a narrow, Scandinavian appearance. Blonde, bearded, pale as a ghost. Hands bony and bruising when they closed around his neck.

Stiles’s fingers closed around the shard of glass and he swung it hard and blind. The man screamed - the noise guttural and desperate now - and the pressure lifted. Stiles scrambled away, choking on air. He got his feet under him and slipped on blood. His vision hadn’t cleared up, but he could see the man just fine, struggling to dislodge a shard of glass from his neck. There was so much blood jutting out from the wound, painting the white fridge red, soaking into the kitchen tiles. His hands were covered in blood, it soaked into the knees of his jeans.

Stiles ran. He broke free from the house, tripping, falling and sprawling out in the yard. It didn’t dampen his haste. He couldn’t really breathe. He was making these horrid sharp gasps, as he clawed his way across the yard. Bile rose in his throat and Stiles forced it back down.

He hesitated when he finally reached the line of mountain ash. What if this was their plan? He broke the circle, or crossed it, and they ripped him apart? He thought maybe he could see something moving in the dark. Stiles stayed there, breathing hard, on his stomach in the grass, hand hovering over the line and head jerking to peer back at the house. The summer heat, even this late in the night, pressed against him like a constricting blanket. It made him sweat, and he swallowed down the humidity thickly and stayed there.

Stiles held his breath and swept a hand over the line, breaking it. And then a Grizzly bear the size of an RV speared through the darkness and leaped at him.

He screamed, the fear in the pit of his stomach eating at him, intensifying, mutating, acidic. He choked on it, and the bear pinned him. The beast’s jaws snapped open and he growled, so close to Stiles’s face. Stiles could feel the hot breath on his cheeks, heating them. He cringed, trying to recoil and make himself smaller, squeezing his eyes shut tightly.

“Stiles.”

Stiles’s eyes snapped open and the bear was gone. He whipped his head around wildly, trying to find it but it wasn’t there anymore. It was just Jackson. He hit Stiles hard across the face, and Stiles’s vision fizzed out, so Jackson hit him again. “You’re tripping balls, dumbass. You got hit with wolfsbane.”

Stiles swung at Jackson, fueled by anger instead of fear this time. His jaw ached, a deep seated pain that migrated across his face inch by inch. His punch was wide and Jackson had him pinned before he even realized Jackson had touched him. “Get off me.”

“Are you gonna scream like a little bitch again, or can we move this little party inside that piece of crap house before your neighbors get curious?” Jackson shot back.

“Who pissed in your cheerios,” Stiles bit out. His eyes were still darting around every several seconds, unconsciously looking for the bear.

Jackson grunted and shoved himself off of Stiles and to his feet. Far less steady, Stiles stood too. He jumped when the door closed behind them, because Jackson was in front of him - oh right, Isaac was there. Stiles felt like he shouldn’t be surprised by that, but he felt surprised anyway. The door was shut, and the bear didn’t follow them in. He breathed easier, but it still felt like he was wearing a corset, each breath seeping more energy from him than the last.

“Wait.” Stiles ran to the kitchen, because there had been a guy here. A hunter. He was gone by the time Stiles got there. Blood was on the floor, and against the counters and across the refrigerator; the shards of broken plate still on the floor, including the one he’d stabbed the guy with - covered in his blood - but he was gone. “Fuck.”

“What?” Isaac asked. Stiles glanced toward him - both of them had followed him into the room.

Stiles gestured wildly toward the ground, the blood. “The hunter. I stabbed him. He’s gone. Fuck.” He waved his hand emphatically. “Fuck.”

Isaac shook his head, staring down at the blood. “We didn’t pass anybody. He must’ve left when you were freaking out.”

“I was not freaking out,” Stiles said. “There was a fucking bear.”

Jackson rolled his eyes. “I told you. You’re tripping balls. How do you even know your entire fight wasn’t a hallucination?”

Stiles stopped and stared. “That’d explain the grizzly bear. They’re not native to California.” He gestured weakly toward the mess in the kitchen. “There’s blood,” he said slowly, but he wasn’t so sure anymore. “There is, right? You see that too, right?” Snapping his fingers, he barked, “Speak.”

Isaac knelt and picked up the bloody shard of glass. He turned it over in his hands, and then leaned closer, to sniff it. “We see it,” he confirmed. “Could smell it from down the block. That’s why we’re here. We weren’t sure if it was your blood, and there was so much…”

Stiles nodded. Good. Fucking good. Or bad. Maybe it was bad. Shit. He had just stabbed a guy in the fucking neck. What the hell was wrong with him?

“Dude. Stop.” Stiles glanced up at Jackson, frowning.

“Stop what?” He asked. He wasn’t being a smart ass, he had no clue what Jackson was talking about.

Jackson swatted his arm. “Scratching,” he snapped. He grabbed Stiles’s wrist and jerked his arm, so Stiles could see it. His arm was red, and in some parts, his nails had gouged too deep. But what was even more alarming, was that his skin - it was moving.

Stiles’s eyes widened. His skin protruded. There was something inside of his arm. He could feel it crawling. “Fuck,” he breathed out. Beside him, Isaac perked up. “Fuck.”

“Right,” Jackson agreed. “So quit fucking scratch-”

The itching got worse. It hurt now, like whatever was in his arm was clawing at his insides - all over. He scratched it, and when he opened his mouth to tell them - he screamed. He couldn’t not scream. It hurt. It hurt a lot. It was the worst pain he had ever experienced. He needed it to stop. He needed it to stop right now.

Isaac surged forward, throwing a hand over Stiles’s mouth. Stiles’s panic skyrocketed. The sound of his blood pumping filled his ears, and everything got really far away. He screamed louder into Isaac’s hand - biting down until he tasted blood.

Isaac shoved him to the ground, smearing blood across Stiles’s mouth as he attempted to still the squirming body.

“Jackson!” Isaac shouted, looking to Jackson. Jackson looked rooted to the spot. “Help me!” Isaac snapped desperately. He recoiled, taking an elbow to the face, but Stiles didn’t even realize he’d made contact. Blood gushed from a broken nose, dripping down onto Stiles’s cheek, and Stiles’s vision turned red. “Grab his hands!”

Jackson knelt down by Stiles’s head and pinned his arms to the ground over his head, but that didn’t do anything to contain Stiles’s thrashing. Isaac hovered over Stiles, straddling him, hands pressed over Stiles’s mouth. “He’s going to pull his stitches,” Jackson said, eyes as root to the spot as his entire body had been moments before. 

“Stiles, you’re hallucinating,” Isaac said forcefully to Stiles, but there was no response from Stiles to indicate that he even heard the words. His heartbeat climbed, deafeningly loud, thundering hard and fast. It was all Stiles could hear. Thump. Thump. Thump. Stiles choked on a strangled sound, feeling the bugs burrow through the muscles of his arms. It hurt and the pain sawed through him. He had to get them out, but Isaac wasn’t moving, and Jackson’s hands were like iron around his arms.

Isaac leaned forward. He looked uncomfortable beneath the blood on his face. He looked so very uncomfortable. “Stiles,” Isaac whispered into Stiles’s ear, inhaling his scent - the sweat and terror and panic and pain. His hand slackened on Stiles’s mouth, but Stiles wasn’t screaming anymore. No. Stiles was whimpering. He was squirming beneath Isaac and writhing in short, aborted motions, but he wasn’t screaming. Isaac pulled his hand away. “Stiles,” he repeated. “You’re hallucinating. Why are you screaming? Stop - _think_ \- why are you screaming?” He murmured into Stiles’s ear.

Stiles squeezed his eyes shut as the words registered. “Bugs,” he said so quietly, Jackson had to lean forward to catch it. “Everywhere.”

Jackson scoffed. “Are you scared of bugs, Stilinski? Unbelievable. You’d think the poor would be used to bugs.”

“Inside my skin,” Stiles finished. He was so far gone, he wasn’t even defensive about it. He had entered the territory of blind terror. It was consuming him. “I can feel them moving.” His breathing grew more labored.

Isaac massaged the crook of Stiles’s neck. “They’re not real,” he stressed. Stiles flinched and squeezed his eyes shut tighter. But they felt real. The pain felt real. The screaming came back, and Isaac pressed his hand over Stiles’s mouth again. He didn’t know how long it lasted.

Jackson and Isaac held him down, and Stiles alternated between screaming and whimpering, and Isaac learned to just let it go, to let him have that, until the wolfsbane worked itself out of his system. You couldn’t rationalize with hallucinations. Stiles didn’t say much, but sometimes, in between the screams, he mumbled things that Isaac couldn’t just not hear. Apologies, mostly. Sometimes a name Isaac didn’t recognize. He apologized to his dad, and to Scott and to his mom - but he called her mommy.

A lot of the time, Stiles didn’t scream with the hallucinations, but he cried. Jackson didn’t move. He wasn’t like Isaac - who alternated between silencing Stiles and petting his hair and whispering into his ear, words Jackson tried to ignore. They were soft reassurances, gentle praises, reminders that it was all a hallucination. Stiles still smelled like pain - like actual physical pain - even when he wasn’t screaming.

“We need to get back to Derek,” Jackson said, his tone as stiff as his back felt. “This could be a diversion - we’re wasting too much time here.”

Isaac shot him a dirty look. “No,” Stiles said thickly. He felt wrecked, his throat raw and voice weak from the screaming; his eyes red and slightly swollen. “He’s right - this is the perfect diversion. It’s a message, Chekhov’s gun.”

Jackson scowled down at him, but Stiles was staring straight ahead, eyes stuck on the ceiling. “What are you talking about, Stilinski?” He snapped.

“Chekhov’s gun. You don’t introduce a gun in act one if you don’t intend to fire it in act three. This is stupid - he could’ve killed me, but he left.” Then Stiles went rigid all over.

“What?” Isaac asked, reverting back to petting Stiles’s hair. “What is it?”

“My dad - he - we have - Isaac -” Stiles squirmed, trying to reach for Isaac, but Jackson didn’t let go. “She said she would kill him - Isaac - get off me -”

“Jackson…?” Isaac glanced up at Jackson.

Jackson didn’t move and Stiles growled in frustrated, but it came out weak. “You talked to her, Stilinski?”

“On the phone. She threatened my dad and told me the tactic they’d taken was wrong. Which means she changed her tactic. Instead of threatening me - she could be threatening you now - or him, like she said she would. This is just a message. Get out of here - get off me -” Stiles thrashed but Jackson didn’t move. Jackson’s nails bit into his arm, and Stiles could feel his skin tearing beneath it. He gasped. “Ow! Let go - get off me!”

Jackson’s head snapped up, eyes locking with Isaac. “I’m not doing anything,” he said defensively.

“Stiles -”

Stiles could feel teeth cutting through his gums. He tasted blood and felt incisors press against his lips and screamed. Isaac swore and covered his mouth again. He pressed his forehead to Stiles’s and went back to whispering into Stiles’s ear. The words didn’t look like they made it through to Stiles, but they both heard his heartbeat rattling in his chest grow steady. “Lahey,” Jackson cut in. “We have to go.”

Whatever lucidity Stiles had displayed earlier was gone now. “We can’t leave him,” Isaac said. “What if he tries to cut the bugs out next time? You go - go to Derek - tell him about the sheriff - I’ll stay.”

“We’re not supposed to separate,” Jackson bit out.

The annoyance was clear on Isaac’s face. “You’re going alone, or not at all, because I’m not leaving him.” They shared a look, one full of tension and anger, but eventually Jackson got up and stalked away. Stiles laid still for a minute, breathing in slow, concentrated breaths.

Eventually, Isaac coaxed Stiles up off of the kitchen floor and up the stairs. Stiles pulled his shirt - now stained with another man’s blood - off over his head and changed into a pair of sweats and let Isaac wash off his hand and press a bandage to it. Stiles collapsed onto bed, and when the bed turned into needles, pressing into his skin, he squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed the muted pain down himself, like a dose of medicine. Isaac hovered beside the bed, fidgeting, waiting for Stiles to scream or claw at his skin or something.

“Pain is only in your mind,” Isaac said. Stiles opened his eyes to find that Isaac hadn’t moved any closer. “You have to…” he hesitated. “Shut it out. Stop thinking about it. Don’t feed it. It’s imaginary.”

Stiles made a sound in the back of his throat as the needles sank deeper into his skin. “That’s easier said than done.” His voice sounded high pitched and scared.

“I know,” Isaac agreed. “It’s near impossible. It’s meant for survival - if you’re in pain, something’s wrong and you need to fix it but you can’t fix anything here, Stiles, so you have to shut it out.” He finally crawled onto the bed with Stiles and hovered over him.

“I don’t know how -”

Isaac pinched him and Stiles hissed in a sharp breath. Then Isaac curled his fingers around Stiles’s hand and pressed his thumb hard against the bandaged cut. Stiles recoiled sharply. “That’s real. Focus on that.”

Stiles jerked his hand away and glared at him. “Is this kind like that - cutting off your arm to make the headache go away thing? You fucking with me so I can’t feel the needles cutting into me? Or see the snakes on the floor?”

Isaac nodded and offered Stiles a small, reluctant smile. “Do you want more?”

“Kinky,” Stiles said and he deliberated for a moment. “Alright, we can be kinky,” he agreed because he hated needles. It wasn’t the pain so much as the uncomfortable sensation of feeling a solid object slide into his skin. It made him twitch in discomfort. Stiles took Isaac’s hand and pulled him closer until Isaac was where he had been before, in the kitchen, straddling him. Stiles pressed Isaac’s hand to his neck. He bared his throat, tilting his head back slightly and Isaac growled quietly, low in his throat. He pressed Isaac’s hand harder, firmer against his throat until breathing got hard - until he had to focus on the struggle, and the needles disappeared. He could breathe, but it was all that his mind could focus on, because oxygen was more important than pain.

He relaxed beneath Isaac, some of the tension draining away. Isaac whined and shifted uncomfortably. He leaned closer, nudging along Stiles’s jaw with his nose. It was the most animalistic instinct Stiles had ever seen Isaac display since Derek made him cower on his first full moon. Isaac’s hand eased and he nuzzled the crook of Stiles’s neck.

“Do I smell like blood?” Stiles asked, even as the voice at the back of his head reminded him that he wasn’t really bleeding. There had never been any needles puncturing his skin. “Maybe Stiles-ka-bob?”

“You smell like fear,” Isaac said. “You always smell like fear,” he added, quieter. “And panic. You smell like home.” Isaac nuzzled his neck again.

“Isn’t that a bad thing?” Stiles asked, breathing easier.

Isaac shook his head, relaxing when Stiles pushed his fingers into Isaac’s hair and held his head there - pressed into his neck. “Not always,” he said. “Derek doesn’t talk about it, but he always smells like fear too. And sorrow.”

Stiles moved gingerly, but he didn’t feel needles pressing into his back anymore, he just felt his bed. “Does he ever smell happy?”

Isaac smiled faintly. “It doesn’t always work like that,” he explained. “You know that dogs can sense fear. And sadness. It’s in your voice, your posture. Werewolves are kind of like that, but everything’s stronger, so we can’t see it, but we can smell it, hear it - we can feel it. Derek always feels sad. It fills up the room. You always feel scared. But not like - I mean, no matter what. Even when we’re at school - so it’s easier to push away. It’s like your default smell.”

“The world’s an unsafe place,” Stiles said, trying for humor, and falling short. “Do you know how many people die from school related accidents? Attacks? Car crashes?”

“No,” Isaac murmured. He didn’t move away from Stiles’s neck. He could feel the pulse of Stiles’s heartbeat against his lips. “But I bet you do.” Isaac wasn’t trying for humor, but still sounded amused.

“What does Scott feel like?” Stiles asked, abruptly changing the subject, but Isaac let it slide.

“Compassion,” he said, thoughtfully. “In everything he does, complete compassion. Not sorrow or fear. Worry sometimes, but it’s not usually about him. You guys have that in common, I never noticed that before.”

Stiles snorted derisively. “I’m not compassionate,” he said. Isaac lifted his head slightly, to see Stiles’s face, to see if he was serious - that he actually believed that.

“You came for me at the jail, on the full moon, when the hunters wanted to kill me,” he pointed out. Sure, Derek had come too - which was great, because if he hadn’t, Isaac might have killed Stiles, but Stiles was there too. Stiles wasn’t convinced, though.

“That was Scott’s plan,” he pointed out. Which, no, it wasn’t. It was his plan - for Allison to shoot the hunter, for him to get into the sheriff’s department and free Isaac - but it was Scott who wanted to do it in the first place. That was Scott’s game, not his. He was all about protecting his own people. He couldn’t protect everyone - he knew that. Scott refused to settle for that, though.

Isaac frowned. “You took Erica to Derek when she was having a seizure,” he said, pointedly.

That was true. Scott hadn’t even wanted to go that time, and it had been all Stiles. “We had to get her out of the school before somebody came back and saw this girl with yellow eyes, freaking out,” Stiles said dismissively.

Isaac’s gaze narrowed. Clearly, he was taking this as a challenge. “You held Derek up for two hours in a pool.”

“Well, it’s not like I had anywhere else to go.”

Isaac growled, but Stiles wasn’t normal. He didn’t jump. He was too deep in this to be scared that easily. “You didn’t have to drown with him.”

Stiles smiled and reached out with his free hand to pinch Isaac’s cheek. “Ooooh, big bad wolf - who’s a scary wolf getting all worked up over nothing - who’s a scary wolf?” He cooed. Isaac growled low in his and Stiles laughed. “Such a cute wittle puppy.”

He didn’t feel the needles anymore. It was in the midst of his laughter that Isaac kissed him. He had the initial - LIPS TOUCHING ME - realization, but then teeth bit through his lip and blood filled his mouth and he reared back, choking. Isaac’s eyes widened and he recoiled. “I’m sorry - that was - I didn’t - you just smelled -”

“You bit me,” Stiles accused, blood spilling out of his mouth, warm on his chin.

Isaac’s eyes widened further. “I didn’t,” he said defensively. “Shit - you’re still hallucinating,” he sighed. 

Stiles closed his eyes and swallowed blood. “It doesn’t taste like a hallucination.” He touched his lip and grimaced. “You definitely bit me.”

“Why would I bite you?” Isaac snapped.

“Uh, bro? I can think of a few times you’ve wanted to bite me - I’m very delicious, actually - not that - okay just ignore that, the images are more salty based than the chicken I was going for… Wait - that night at Scott’s house with Lydia? You totally bit me on purpose, didn’t you?”

Isaac went from annoyed to sheepish instantly. It was actually extremely cute and Stiles fought down the urge to pinch his cheeks again. “Sorry, that was mean,” he conceded, leaning forward to nuzzle Stiles’s jaw. “No more biting.”

“You’re fucking right no more biting. I’m bleeding,” Stiles huffed indignantly.

“It’s a hallucination, you’re not bleeding,” Isaac said helpfully. He went back to petting Stiles’s hair anyway. The only difference this time was that Stiles’s hand made it to Isaac’s hair, and pet it a little bit too. “I’m sorry I bit you.”

“It’s okay,” Stiles said. “It’s just my lip - I don’t even need those anyway?”

“Are you sure about that?” Isaac asked. When silence answered that question, he added hurriedly, “because you can’t pronounce words without lips.”

“Right. Of course,” Stiles agreed just as quickly. Wow. Awkward. He did take that to an unsavory place. “Good point - you are not wrong about that.”

Isaac grinned, and sagged down against Stiles. “Can you sleep?” He asked into the crook of Stiles’s neck.

“No.”

“Do you want to hear a story?”

“Okay.”

“Once upon a time there was -”

“Once upon a time, really?”

“Do you want to hear the story or not?”

“Sorry, sorry. Please do continue. I am dying to know what happened once upon a time so very long ago, in a galaxy far far away…”

“Shut up. Anyway. Once upon a time…”


End file.
